The City Times met with district manager media liaison of emergency services William Ntladi at the Farrarmere Fire Station to get a full understanding of how Disaster and Emergency Management Emergency Services (DEMS) operate in the new structure.
DEMS, according to Ntladi, is a department under the City of Ekurhuleni (CoE) which is subdivided into two divisions – disaster management and emergency services (ES).
“Under ES, the division operates from three different regions, East, North and Southern regions, of which each has a specific amount of fire stations,” explained Ntladi.
“In the Eastern region there are 10 fire stations, the Northern region carries 10 and in the Southern region, there are nine.”
Ntladi said in former years, the Benoni town council area homed three fire stations – Benoni Central Fire Station at the corner of Liverpool and Harper roads, Rynfield Fire Station in Pretoria Road and Farrarmere Fire Station in Sapphire Street.
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However, under the CoE, the fire stations no longer belong exclusively to the town of Benoni as each of the 29 stations across the metro carry specific functions that make up a complete unit.
“All 29 fire stations are under one administration and the headquarters is in Bedfordview.”
Ntladi placed the fire stations in Benoni in context with the rest of the metro.
“The three regions are subdivided into districts.
“Each consists of either two, three or maximum four fire stations to enhance effective service delivery.
“Rynfield, Farrarmere and Boksburg Leon Ferreira fire stations belong to one district in the Northern region.
“Benoni Central, Brakpan and Tsakane fire stations belong to their separate district in the Eastern region, which has its line management all reporting to the same divisional head.”
According to Ntladi, individual fire stations are directly under the administration of a station manager.
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Each station consists of four shifts and each shift is under the leadership of a shift manager who ultimately reports to the station manager.
“Each fire station has a major industrial pumper, rescue pumper and grass unit pumper and each is used according to the severity of the fire.
“In each district, there is a water tanker based in one of the fire stations within the district and specialised hydraulic platforms are placed strategically per region.”
Ntladi said presently fire brigade services moved away from the fire chief`s terms to what is now called a divisional head.
“All fire stations within the CoE are under the leadership of Mhlengi Makhubalo, the divisional head based at headquarters.”
Ntladi said DEMS responds to fires by dispatching services from stations within the regions to the sites in needs and highlighted during the rainy season, flooding incidents and sometimes structural damages due to hail storms and other adverse weather patterns are experienced.
He also noted after the reception of an emergency call, firefighters have two minutes to get the relevant resources to respond to the scene.
“Members of the public are encouraged to ensure the messages and addresses are well captured by the call takers and reference numbers given.
“Personal contacts are very important to the call takers to enable address verifications,” emphasised Ntladi.
For emergencies the public can contact any of the following numbers:
Call centre Life-Threatening Emergency Number (paid line) 011 458 0911.
National Toll-free Emergency Number is 10177.
International cell phone number is 112.
“The public is encouraged to preferably use this number: 011 458 0911, which is directly received by the CoE call centre,” concluded Ntladi.
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