Wa Market simulation exercise exposes access challenge

A simulation exercise conducted by the Wa Municipal Fire Station of the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) to test the readiness and response to a real-life fire situation at the Wa Central Market has shown that access to the market remains a major challenge.

Traders have encroached on the access way and the service had a hectic time moving its fire engines closer to the fire scene.

In the process of gaining access to the scene, the fire engine hit an iron stall and burst one of its tyres, running into the wares of other traders and scattering some of the items to the ground.

Aside from the lack of access, the traders were nonchalant in their response, did not look concerned and went about their business as they always did.

Reaction

Shedding light on the objective of the exercise, the acting Wa Municipal Fire Commander, Assistant Divisional Officer (ADOI) Imran Iddrisu, said the reaction of the traders could be because they knew “this was a simulation exercise and not a real-life situation.”

That notwithstanding, he said their reaction to a real-life situation would not be far from what happened during the simulation exercise and the objective of the exercise, he said was mainly to test the readiness of the personnel and some of the challenges the service would face in an eventual fire incident.

He said it was not the wish of the service that something should happen “but if we find ourselves in such a situation, we should be able to deal with it effectively.”

Access

He said the service had complained about the dangers involved in people encroaching on the access road and the need for the city authority to keep those access roads free of human activities.

Some of the stalls that were affected

ADO Iddrisu explained that aside from exposing their lives to danger, they also posed a serious challenge to effective firefighting.

Using what happened during the simulation exercise as an example, he said the engine could have run into people due to human activities there.

He said an assessment of the hydrants conducted by the service showed there were only three functional hydrants in the entire Wa town and the one closer to the market had challenges with pressure.

That, he said, was another challenge the service has to deal with in case of a real emergency.

He said the service would write its report to the city managers to take action to clear all obstacles on the access way for a smooth response to an emergency.

Complain

The Regional Fire Officer, Assistant Chief Fire Officer Grade II (ACFOII), Isaac Kofi Obosu, said the service had complained about the challenges faced during the simulation exercise as some of the obstacles it could face in a real situation.

He said the exercise confirmed them and was hopeful that the city managers would take action to correct them.

While it was not the wish of the service, he said all precautionary measures should be taken to ensure that in the event of any fire incident, the service would be able to fight it without facing any challenges.

In the meantime, he said his men would continue with the fire safety education and appeal to the traders to adhere to all safety measures to avert any incident at the market.

He expressed his appreciation to the Ghana Police Service and the National Ambulance Service who were all there to support the Ghana National Fire Service to carry out the exercise.