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Public awareness on fire hazards decisive
2007-10-23 09:20:14
By Editor
Depending on the circumstances, fires can be either partners in development or the most destructive of enemies.
This fact has become such a truism that it is often taken for granted, attracting attention only after some fire-induced tragedy.
When such tragedy strikes, usually leaving behind large-scale misery and suffering in terms of loss of life and limb and damage to property, it is not uncommon for victims and even members of the larger public to look at the Tanzania Electric Supply Company (Tanesco) as the main or most direct culprit.
Tanesco has doubtless often borne the brunt of public ire and criticism in the event of a destructive house, industrial or other inferno. Efforts by the firm to plead its innocence seldom impress anyone.
Yet honest construction, urban planning and various other experts whose activities are linked to the possibility of such fires erupting know that there are various other ways to explain the causes of such incidents.
The experts would not rule out recklessness or incompetence by those undertaking electrical installations, irresponsibility by those occupying the buildings or other infrastructure concerned, and the fact of fire and rescue service providers not responding fast enough to calls for emergency help or lacking proper equipment and supplies when they respond fast enough and it does not really help trading blame or accusations.
Rather than seeking to pass the buck, it would be a lot more advisable heeding calls by experts underlining the need for buildings and other structures to be as insulated against fires as possible.
Obviously, some of the precautions that ought to be taken are very simple to implement and do not call for much investment.
These include ensuring that electricity and other potential causes of fires are used with extreme care, having fire extinguishers that work and being able to use them when necessary, and sensitising children and other family or community members on the destruction fires can cause and how to avoid them or minimize their destructive impact. Again, the list of possibilities can be very long.
In this respect, we find the remarks made by IPP Executive Chairman Reginald Mengi after fire damaged part of his Dar es Salaam residence on Tuesday night especially instructive.
In a cautionary note, he dismissed the long-held tradition of heaping tonnes of blame on Tanesco whenever an electric fault ends in a devastating fire outbreak and instead stressed the need for buildings to have genuine electrical fittings fixed by certified technicians.
In these days when fake goods of all types and sizes have flooded the Tanzanian market, there is every need for consumers to be extra vigilant vis-à-vis counterfeit products being touted as genuine ones.
The public should also feel obliged to cooperate with law-enforcers and agencies like Tanzania Bureau of Standards in containing trade in fake goods because, in the case of electrical appliances, it means the difference between safeguarding the lives of innocent people and seeing them cruelly ended by an inferno that could have been avoided.
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