Fire disasters: OYRTMA, Fire Service plan response team

Partnership
By David Adeoye
Ibadan, April 20, 2020 (NAN) Dr Akin Fagbemi, the Chairman of the Oyo State Road Transport Management Authority (OYRTMA), says the agency in partnership with the State Fire Service is set to launch a joint rapid response team.

Fagbemi said the team would enhance the Fire Service’s timely response to fire incidents in markets.

The chairman, who addressed newsmen on Monday, was reacting to the April 15 fire disaster at the popular Dugbe market.

Fagbemi said the team would put an end to the menace of blockage of access roads to markets as a result of haphazard and indiscriminate parking of vehicles.

He noted that blockage of access roads remained a major factor impeding the work of firefighters during emergencies.

“OYRTMA, as a proactive and responsive government agency, has put in place workable framework to collaborate, in a Joint Rapid Response Operation, with the state’s Fire Service.

“While I commiserate with all affected traders in the inferno that occurred at Dugbe, may I seize this opportunity to join Gov. Seyi Makinde  to beseech marketers, both sellers and buyers, to maintain high level of discipline as regards road usage in market places,” he said.

He said the collaboration with OYRTMA to clear access roads to markets  before the arrival of the State Fire Service would enhance response to fire emergencies.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that goods worth millions of naira were destroyed when 20 shops at the Lebanon area of Dugbe Alawo were burnt in an inferno on April 15. (NAN)
DAK/OJO
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(Edited by Mufutau Ojo)