Cebu City Fire Dep’t intensifies info drive, volunteer trainings as holidays draw near

The barangay fire volunteers are trained on what to do during fire incidents where ‘zero visibility’ will be experienced during their second day of the five-day Certificate of Competency (COC) training, conducted by the Cebu City Fire Department at Barangay Guadalupe Sports Complex. | CDN Digital Files / Gerard Francisco

CEBU CITY, Philippines — The Cebu City Fire Department is intensifying their fire prevention programs, hoping to curb the higher number of fire incidents happening this year especially with the holiday season drawing near.

Senior Fire Officer 1 (SFO1) Romeo Birao Jr. of the Cebu City Fire Department said that the department had been intensifying its fire prevention programs especially since statistics of fire incidents in the city this year had gone up as compared to 2018.

He cited the month of October this year where they responded to 26 fire incidents, which were 12 more than the fire cases of October last year. This included the Alaska Mambaling fire on October 31, 2019 where at least 25 houses were razed.

Read more: 25 houses razed by dawn fire in Alaska Mambaling

He also said the months of February, March, April and May this year had the highest number of fire incidents reported with a total of 239 reported fire incidents as compared to only 102 fire incidents in the same period in 2018.

With this year’s fire incident statistics, Birao said that they were intensifying their training programs for more barangay fire volunteers and their information dissemination campaign.

He said that they had ongoing Certificate of Competency training (COC) for more than 60 barangay fire volunteers.

Once these volunteers complete these five-day COC training, they would be the quick responders in their respective barangays during fire alarms.

“If there are any untoward incident that will happen in their area of responsibility, they can initiate the action,” said Birao.

He said that these volunteers would add more men that would help during fire incidents.

Aside from the COC training, Birao said they had also conducted constant house to house visits on Saturdays to check on electrical wiring problems and the illegal use of butane canisters.

He said they had also been consistent with their truck visibility program where firetrucks would cruise around certain areas at 6 a.m. and 9 p.m. to monitor and respond immediately in case of possible fire alarms.

During their house visits, he said that they would also distribute flyers with reminders on what to do and not do when there would be a fire incident to household owners.

With all these action plans, Birao said the city fire department is hoping the fire incidents especially this coming holiday, would be minimized./dbs