By Nneka Nwogwugwu
Minister of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning, Anton Bredell, stated that the findings of the Fire Service Capacity Assessment conducted in 2014 and some of the challenges highlighted.
We were also informed of the Provincial Government’s comprehensive measures in place to reduce the risk associated with fires.
In addition to the allocation towards aerial support, the Western Cape Government’s comprehensive measures in place to prevent and fight fires in the province include:
An allocation of R41.134 million to municipalities for 60 firefighting vehicles between 2016 to date through the allocation of Fire Service Capacity Building Conditional grants.
A provincial contribution of R3 million has been made to Stellenbosch Municipality for an aerial fire-fighting appliance.
On integrated wildfire management, we have a special operations response, which includes an ‘Urban Search and Rescue Team’ with 130 trained USAR technicians and a Hazardous Materials Response System which consists of a District Response System and two units provided to Central Karoo.
We have installed more than 10 000 smoke alarms in informal dwellings through the smoke alarms programme. This has decreased fire-related deaths by approximately 90% in areas with installed smoke alarms.
The Western Cape Disaster Management Centre have three active United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination members who have received international training in terms of responding to disasters.
The Provincial Government is providing a Fire and Rescue training programme. This has ensured that 90% of municipal firefighters outside of the Metro have received training in mandatory fire qualification since 2016.
Training has also been provided to a total of 105 members in specialist Hazardous Materials Response in 2021 and 20 Technical Rescuers are being trained a year.
