Twenty-eight people died in fire disasters in Gombe, while 699 lives were saved by the state’s fire service in 2021.

This is contained in data made available to NAN in Gombe on Friday by Mahmoud Salihu, deputy operation officer of the service.

The data also revealed that property worth N7 billion were saved while property worth N2.23 billion were lost to fire disasters in the year under review.

Also, 280 incident calls were received during the period, while 59 persons recorded various degrees of injuries.

Mr Salihu said the service was prepared to combat fire outbreaks in 2022.

He stated that the service would take proactive measures to ensure that its personnel were regularly trained in 2022 to combat fire outbreaks while strengthening sensitisation.

The fire officer advised residents of the state to be more careful in handling issues that could result to fire disasters because of the havoc fire could wreak on communities.

“If you have cooking gas, please always check properly to ensure that it is turned off before going to bed, and always check electrical installations for faulty cables while insisting experts fix any faults,” he said. “Also, if you must put on generators, kindly ensure that you put off the generator before refuelling it to avoid any fire disasters; this is important for residential areas and even shopping malls.”

He further advised Gombe residents to acquire firefighting equipment like fire blankets and extinguishers to control fire outbreaks before they become a disaster.

Mr Salihu restated the service’s commitment to reduce fire outbreaks across the state. Hence, he said the service would engage more in 2022 to strengthen awareness to residents. 

He, however, warned those who engaged in false fire incident calls to stop. 

(NAN)