Misuse and theft of electricity cited as major cause of fires

Oct 09, 2010 News

… As fire prevention week concludes

For this year to date statistics for fires reveal that there were 1,492 fire calls, 186 buildings were completely destroyed or damaged, 247 persons were left homeless, and seven deaths.
However, against last year around this same period there were 731 fire calls, 234 buildings destroyed or severely damaged and ten deaths.
According to the Fire Chief Marlon Gentle, Fire Prevention Week must be looked at in a general sense. From the fire service perspective fire prevention is not only the responsibility of the fire service but all.
He said that everyone has a responsibility of making sure the environment is safe and to further reduce the risk of fires.
The Fire Chief advised that the most fires in households are caused by carelessness, especially leaving children unattended and with access to matches and lighters.
He explained one of the largest causes of fires is the misuse of electricity and in some cases theft of electricity, overloading of circuits.
Households are using lots of faulty electrical equipments and lack of servicing of these equipments causes abrupt and unexpected fires, he added.
On many occasions people would say that a fire is electrical in nature. Gentle said that many people would place blame on Guyana Power Light (GPL) which may not necessarily be the case; it may be a user fault, since many households are not servicing their heavy duty equipments such as their washing machines, and fridges. That may lead to an eventual fire.
Some persons may also want to cram appliances in small places with poor ventilation which also causes equipments to explode abruptly and cause fires.
He further said that many fires are caused by simple mistakes, and in some cases lack of knowledge of fire prevention.
The Fire Chief noted that there has been an increase in the malicious use of fire. These are the cases of arson, and suicide.
He also disclosed that the fire service has been having better response times and being able to prevent fires from escalating and destroying other properties. Businesses have shown improvement in equipping their departments with the relevant fire fighting equipment and fire alarms. Some even have early detection burglar alarms.

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Misuse and theft of electricity cited as major cause of fires

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