One of the most common calamities at this time of the year are fire outbreaks which are mostly brought about by the wind and dryness typical of the harmattan season. Although there are so many other causes for fire incidents at this time, the major reasons can be attributed to carelessness and ignorance.
Just recently, a secondary school student was burnt beyond recognition during a fire outbreak in his school. He was the only casualty because other students were in class for their night class while he was in the hostel alone. The cause of the outbreak has not been ascertained but the fact remains that a child was lost to the inferno.
At this time in the villages, bush burning is a common cause of fire outbreaks. Most times, bushes that are close to homesteads are set on fire during hunting of games and wild animals. This is dangerous because most times, it extends to houses and farmlands close to these bushes.
It is important to discover ways of preventing these fire disasters in order to save lives and property. This can be done by the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) who can help in sensitizing residents on how best to check these fire outbreaks.
There are so many ways to check the break out of fire in society. For instance, it is important to improve on housekeeping culture like the bad habit of storing petroleum products in and around the home. Most people do not switch off power supply at the main switch or control board in the incident of power failure to prevent power surge when power is restored. So many fire outbreaks in most homes have been attributed to misuse of the candle. It would help to use more of torch lights and rechargeable lanterns instead of candle light. Even if the candle will be used, there are candle stands made for that purpose. Overload of electric sockets often cause sparks that might lead to fire outbreaks. This should be avoided as well as the use of cell phones in the kitchen. Top on the list of causes of fire outbreaks is also, fuelling generator sets when they are in use. This is a trend that has caused a lot of damages and should be condemned. Fuelling of generator sets should be done before use because of its highly flammable nature.
Prevention, they say, is better than cure. So many lives were lost in the past year because of ignorance. That is why people have fire extinguishers without knowing how to make use of them. The aforementioned, if applied will go a long way in checking fire outbreaks while also, mitigating its impact.
