Lack of water in hydrants affected our firefighting ability – Fire Service

The Ghana National Fire Service has indicated that there was no water flowing through the fire hydrant closer to the La gas explosion site.

This was revealed by the Director of Public Affairs, Billy Anaglate in an interview with Accra-based Citi FM.

He explained that this caused them to delay in the process of dousing the fire because the fire trucks had to go all the way to Makola in the Central Business District to refill the trucks to put out the fire.

“Because of the contingency plan we put in place, even with the biggest challenge of not having water readily available passing through the hydrant for firefighting meaning we even needed to move our vehicles, when they were exhausted off water, to travel all the way Makola to replenish… we were able to fight the fire, to extinguish it at that shortest possible time of even four hours or five hours.”

“There were fire hydrants within the Trade Faire and around the area but water was not passing through, if you have a hydrant and water company has not released water to pass through it, there is no way you will be able to access it.”

However the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) questioned why the Fire Service personnel went all the way to Makola instead of their headquarters which was closer to the explosion site.

The Public Relations Office of the GWCL, Stanley Martey said “the Ghana National fire service has a hydrant in this head office at the ring road and they are supposed to be fetching water on there all the time. Why are they saying they had to go all the way to Makola?”

He then asserted that the Fire Service did not have to play a blame game since their excuses are not justified.

“It is not proper at this time to be laying blame and I think that it is high time the fire service stopped blaming the Ghana Water Company limited anytime they fail in their responsibilities.”

“The softest area to blame is the Ghana Water Company limited and I think it is wrong. I think it is very bad. We have discussed this issue several times and the Fire Service is always quick to lay blame on water not being in the hydrant,” he added.