By Juliet Mettle-Edmonds
The Greater Accra Regional Command of the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS), has embarked on an educational campaign through some of the principal streets of Accra. The education drive is to sensitise Ghanaians to be fire safety conscious during and after the Easter festivities.
The education campaign started from the Regional Headquarters at Korle-Bu and went to Kaneshie, Abossey Okai, Sabon Zongo, Laterbiokoshie, and some principal streets in Accra.
The firemen distributed flyers with messages on fire safety to the public. Officers from other security services joined in the campaign march with placards that also had inscriptions on fire safety.
Sending the message of fire safety across, the Fire Officers carried placards with inscriptions: “Switch off and unplug electrical appliances when not in use in your home or office; do not overload sockets with many electrical gadgets; do not place electrical wires under carpets; and hire the services of a qualified electrician to work on your electrical installations.”
Other messages include keeping a fire extinguisher in your car, avoiding the use of petrol or kerosene to revive a fire indoors, turning off the gas or electrical supply to your cooker immediately after use, and others.
At Kaneshie, the team made a stopover to educate the public.
The Regional Director of Safety, DO 1 Evans Osei Wusu, encouraged the public to continue to adhere to the safety protocols.
He added that, “The public, let us be their friends, and they should also be our friends; they should come to us if they do not understand anything.”
“Our doors are always open; we do not close our doors at midnight. You can contact us on anything you want us to do for you. If there is any fire, they should not hesitate, wait and try to put the fire off before calling us, and if they put it off, they should still call us because they might be something hidden somewhere.”
The Regional Commander, ACFO I Roberta Aggrey Ghanson, said the Ghana National Fire Service, GNFS, is ever ready to encourage and educate the public to minimize fires and ensure safety.
‘We have communicated to the world, that we are ready for our work, and we want everyone to be safety minded’.
ACFO I Roberta Aggrey Ghanson said, “Let us live in unity because mother Ghana wants us to live in peace, and once there is peace together, we can do it.”
She urged all to continue to adhere to the safety messages. “Let us keep the route of escape safe; let us switch off all electrical gadgets when leaving home, among others, because we want you alive, and so it is the same access to be used by the emergency team when they are coming in to rescue you. As we are avoiding what we need to avoid, we say, let us keep our environment safe from fire and let us keep our route of escape safe for use.”
The fire safety campaign march ended at the regional command at Korle-Bu, and the general consensus was that “fire safety is a shared responsibility.”