Fire brigade ill-equipped to handle major mishaps

KOCHI: Though the fire brigade in Kochi is ready to tackle any emergency, the department lags behind their counterparts in other cities in terms of equipment and technology. While most southern metro cities have contemporary technologies including global positioning system (GPS) and new communication devices, the fire and rescue service here lack modern systems.
The fire and rescue department in Chennai has 80 vehicles across 33 fire stations in the city. The fleet includes water trucks, foam tenders and emergency rescue tenders each with a capacity of 5,000 to 9,000 litres of water and 1000 litres of foam.
In the case of Bengaluru, fire and rescue services have 14 fire stations and 52 vehicles. Fire brigade in Hyderabad has 15 fire stations and 22 vehicles including water bowsers, water tenders, crash tenders and foam tenders. Tamil Nadu Fire and Rescue Service deputy director S Vijayasekar said all vehicles are equipped with communication devices including walkie-talkies, wireless and mobile phones.
“We use GPS to track vehicle movement and control room gives instruction to officials till the operation is over,” he said.
Meanwhile, there are only five fire stations in Kochi and 12 vehicles, each with a capacity of 4,500 litres, to tackle emergency situations. Officials complain they lack modern safety gears and communication devices. “Due to the lack of walkie-talkies and wireless devices, we cannot communicate with our control room while a rescue is in progress,” said an official.
A senior official said though we have a capacity of 4,500 litres of water, about 40% will be evaporated while dousing major fires.
“Though government has allocated about Rs 27 crore to procure modern fire fighting equipment, only 25% has been utilized by authorities,” he said.