Water scarcity hits fire services

Fire wing at a loss over attending to distress calls

Mahabubnagar: With the onset of summer, fire accidents take place frequently. However, due to water scarcity that has hit the district, which is also drought prone, the staff at the fire stations are having a difficult time in getting the fire engine tanks filled with water to put out the flames whenever accidents take place. While in other seasons, the staff get their fire engine tanks filled up with water from a small pond or lake, it becomes extremely difficult in summer in the district. They have to run around the municipal offices to get water from the municipal tankers.

There are, at present, fire stations in eight areas and three outposts in the district and all of them face acute water shortage. The fire stations, especially, at Gadwal, Wanaparthi, Narayanapeta, Atmakur, Shadnagar, Nagarkurnool, Mahbubnagar, Kollapur are facing several problems. While some of the fire stations have new fire engines, the others have old and outdated vehicles.

The government has not taken any steps to drill bore wells in the fire stations for fetching water. Whenever, they receive phone calls regarding fire accidents in some parts of the district, they are not in a position to send the fire engines on time to put off the flames. By the time the fire engines reach the site of accidents, the damage would be done. A case in point is the fire accident that occurred in Venkateshwara Ginning Mills.

There is only one fire station at Gadwal covering the nine mandals of Alampur constituency in the district. By the time the fire engine reached the spot, the entire stock of cotton was burnt down. Similarly, another fire accident took place at Vaddepalli and a fire engine could not be pressed into service on time. Speaking to The Hans India, Gadwal fire station officer Krishna Reddy said that in the undivided Andhra Pradesh, whenever there was an accident in and around Alampur town, a fire engine was sent from Kurnool town, but now things have changed and such a facility is not available.

Moreover, the sub-station building at Gadwal is in a dilapidated state and may collapse anytime from now and the lack of adequate staff is adding to the woes of the available staff in running the fire station. Next, the Wanaparthi fire station is not fully equipped to put out the flames in the eight mandals in the district whenever accidents take place. For instance, a fire accident took place in Palem and by the time the fire engine reached the site of the accident that took place at 25 km away, the entire bus was gutted.

Similarly, in Narayanpeta, Kollapur, Nagarkurnool and Mahabubnagar, scarcity of water at the fire stations made them ineffective in dealing with fire accidents. District Fire Officer Giridhar Reddy said that they receive three to four phone calls of fire accidents everyday and they were taking measures to reach the spot on time to douse the flames. Some of the staff of fire stations said that residential quarters should be provided to them and construction of new buildings for the fire stations should be taken up.