Property worth billions of rupees was gutted in Peshawar on last Saturday as a result of which thousands of daily wage earners who worked in the factories that were housed in the gutted buildings would now be rendered jobless. What a pity that our municipal bodies whose job it is to maintain a fighting fit fire brigade system round the clock have been neglecting this job. Experience of hindsight reveals that whenever fire breaks out in any city the municipal committees or municipal corporations have to bank on the fire brigades of the cantonment boards or Armed forces to put it out as the so called fire brigades kept by them are good for nothing. Nor are they equipped with necessary wherewithal to extinguish fire nor is the staff employed on them are duly trained for the purpose . To cap it all they reach the spot where the fire had broken quite late with the result that the fire had already done the damage by the time they appeared on the scene.
Isn’t it about time that the local government ministers of all the the provinces organise fire brigade system in all the districts in their bailiwicks on modern lines on a war footing. Fully trained fire extinguishing staff should be put on the duty round the clock and deputy commissioners be made responsible for closely monitoring their functioning and frequently by carrying out mock fire extinguishing exercises also to check whether or not the staff deployed in fire brigade departments are up to the mark.
More often than not the fire brigades reach the spots where fire had broken quite late and by the time they become operational fire had already done the damage
