Teach your children not to play with fire and electricity this winter

Being aware of the cold front hitting Gauteng, the City of Johannesburg’s Emergency Management Services this week warned the public to take precautionary measures to avoid disasters and tragedies.

The City’s Emergency Management Services(EMS) Media Liaison Officer, Nana Radebe said EMS is very much alarmed with the number of lives and property that are lost due to domestic fires during winter season.

“These fires have led to unnecessary deaths and loss of property leaving communities in a vulnerable state. These unforeseen circumstances are preventable if people use proper cooking and lighting equipment and know how to identify the risks in their houses and remove them,” she added.

According to Radebe, these fires are mostly caused by lighting and heating appliances that are not regulated by National Regulator for Compulsory Specifications (NRCS), and in most cases they explode and start fires.

She said candles that are not placed on proper candle safety jars to prevent them from falling cause these disasters. She also cautioned that using open fire for cooking in a confined space with highly flammable materials like braziers (Imbaula) also cause death when people inhale its toxic smoke.

“Illegal connections of electricity also have bad consequences for young children in those areas with electrocution,” she said.

Radebe added that the most recent causes which the City find difficult to deal with are the fires started by love triangles whereby couples fight because one partner no longer loves the other.

“EMS has noticed a decline in the number of fires in the city. During the winter season last year EMS responded to 388 fire incidents within the City of Johannesburg’s informal and formal settlements. It is unfortunately that 97 people died during those fire incidents,” said Radebe. She said that it is mostly young children who are left alone at home and are also given responsibility to cook for themselves in the processes being vulnerable to these fire incidents.

Ward 97 councillor, Jaco Engelbrecht, said some of these fire disasters are caused by people who leave plugs and stoves switched on and other electrical appliances like iron and electric heaters when there is power failure. “When the electricity comes back, these are likely to cause fire especially when there are no people in the house who can quickly notice them. We are always excited when people come up with new technology like solar power appliances,” said Engelbrecht.

He said the unfortunate thing is that these solar power technologies cannot power stoves. “People must be vigilant when the electricity switches off – especially with Eskom’s likelihood of power failures,” he added.