The Minister for Interior, Muntaka Mubarak, is set to roll out an initiative that will see the deployment of fire brigades who will monitor markets across the country on a 24-hour basis.

The Ministry revealed its plans to partner with the Ministry of Youth Development to release beneficiaries under the Youth Employment module who will be trained to help in fighting fire outbreaks.

Fire outbreaks have destroyed major markets in parts of the country, with the latest incident being the Blue Light section of the Kumasi Central Business District.

With the quest to reduce the fire outbreaks, Muntaka Mubarak stressed that more efforts are needed to address market fires in the country.

“The other thing that we want to do, for which we will need and seek your support, is to have fire brigades in all our markets. Here, we cannot rely on firefighters alone because their numbers will not be enough to cover all our markets. So, we are currently in talks with the Minister for Youth Development.

“The Youth Employment model employs many youths; give them to us, and we will train them in fire safety and other related areas so that they can join the fire safety officers.

“This way, we can man our markets 24/7 so that when something happens, they can start the extinguishing process since they know while they call the fire service tenders to come. This requires innovation and partnership,” he noted.