Equipped for any emergency
With these five new vehicles, the search and rescue disaster that happened in Soweto recently will not happen again. The Johannesburg Fire Department seems to be learning from its mistakes as they displayed the five vehicles in front of the Public Safety Headquarters in Martindale on 30 June. Nana Radebe, spokesperson for the Johannesburg …
With these five new vehicles, the search and rescue disaster that happened in Soweto recently will not happen again.
The Johannesburg Fire Department seems to be learning from its mistakes as they displayed the five vehicles in front of the Public Safety Headquarters in Martindale on 30 June.
Nana Radebe, spokesperson for the Johannesburg Emergency Services (JEMS) said the vehicles were “state of the art for the job.”
These vehicles are the first in a three-year-long initiative to replace the entire department’s fleet, replacing five to seven vehicles per year.
Of the five vehicles – that cost the department R24 million – there are two normal fire engines, a search and rescue vehicle, a hazardous materials [‘hazmat’] vehicle and a command-centre vehicle.
The command centre was the most impressive as it housed a plethora of technology that would allow the department to call in and dispatch the new fleet to any area of need. The hazmat vehicle is a specialised vehicle that would allow the department to deal with any chemical spillage or gas leaks and repair them while keeping any one exposed, safe from harm. The search and rescue vehicle outstrips its predecessor in every way as it comes equipped with all the state-of-the-art equipment required to deal with any and all search and rescue operations such as the recent Soweto disaster.
Each vehicle is being allocated to different stations around Johannesburg according to risk analysis. The two fire engines will be stationed in Rosebank and [Riedbank], the hazmat vehicle in Modderfontein and the search and rescue vehicle in Midview while the command centre will be placed in Sandton.
The Fire Department will also receive training from the manufactures of the new vehicles on how to maintain them so that they can be kept up to scratch and ready to respond to any situation at any time.
“This proves to the city that we are ready,” said Fana Mnguni, divisional chief of operations for the Fire Department and the residents of Johannesburg can only hope that he is right.
