ON FIRE BUT SHORT

 

House fire at Bomana in NCD

NOT ENOUGH MANPOWER, SAYS FIRE CHIEF ROO

THERE are only 72 firefighters in the nation’s capital looking after a population of approximately 400, 000 people scattered over an area of 240 square kilometres.

Currently the four fire stations located across the city each has a manpower of only 18 firefighters rotating on shift.

Chief Fire Officer Bill Roo said this manpower is not enough. He said each fire station is supposed to have a ceiling of 32 firefighters, both male and female.

He explained that due to funding constraints the PNG Fire Service is not able to recruit presently.

“We have a lot of vacancies; we cannot recruit on all of them because of the funding so we are recruiting a little bit at the time,” said Mr Roo.

Recently the PNGFS put out a vacancy notice to recruit firefighters both for NCD and other provinces and have received over 11, 000 applications which are still being screened.

Mr Roo receiving a new fire truck.

“Trying to screen these applications is time consuming. Now we have been given the green light to recruit only 89 but we are trying to ask if we can get 100, an additional 11 more,” he said.

Mr Roo explained that in fact the PNG Fire Service have almost 200 to 300 vacancies across the country which they have been trying to recruit for some time.

Additionally, there is a need for more fire stations to be built in the nation’s capital as developments occur and extend the city’s boundaries further.

Mr Roo said: “Given the current development taking place we need to have more fire stations built because traffic is one of those impediments, we are facing in terms of responding to a fire.”

With Claudia Tally of Post-Courier

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