A lot of speculative comments have been made about National Fire Authority (NFA) not having water in water tanks of the fire trucks when they respond to fire incidents.

Referring to the Fiji Sun “Sunonline” comments on Friday, 5th June 2020 (Pg 12), NFA Chief Executive Officer Puamau Sowane states that it is important for people to understand that fire trucks hold water every time they respond to fire scenes.

CEO Sowane said, “Our firefighters do their best when it comes to responding to any fire emergency or rescue. Every fire truck is ready with water in their water tanks to respond as soon as they are alerted of the fire incident.” 

CEO Sowane clarified that Rakiraki Fire Station has two Fire Trucks and both have 2,000 litres tank capacity each.  It is also important to understand that the Fire Trucks are equipped with 38mm and 64mm diameter size hoses.  It should be noted that using a 64mm fire hose at an output rate of 125 litres per minute and 750kpa pressure, the total tank capacity of 2,000 litres is discharged within 16 minutes.  CEO Sowane also stated that we do not store flood or rain waters but rely on water in water tanks and hydrants during the time of fire emergencies to ensure constant flow.

NFA acknowledged with much gratitude the support of the stakeholders with water tankers in Rakiraki during the incident in the past week.

The fire in Rakiraki town started from a kitchen area while someone was cooking. CEO Sowane says that such fire incidents could have been avoided if precautions were taken.

The Rakiraki Fire incident saw NFA teams climbing up heavily burglar-barred buildings but their determination to stop the fire from spreading to the whole block of adjoining buildings did not deter them from continuing their work until they contained the fire from further spread.

Mr. Sowane urges the public and business community es to start reviewing their fire safety strategies to prevent the unnecessary occurrence of fires in their property and to work with NFA to take advantage of the fire safety and fire prevention services offered.  

CEO Mr. Sowane re-iterates that fire safety is everyone’s responsibility and that simple fire safety precautions should be strictly adhered to at all times to avoid unnecessary fire related damages to properties.

He also advises the public to call 910 as soon as they see smoke or fire in order to give NFA and its Firefighters the best and quickest opportunity to respond to the fire incident.

Every life and property matters and everyone has a role to play to ensure that our properties, businesses, homes are fire safe.

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