The Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) has started training fire volunteers across the country to serve as frontline firefighters at the community level.

The volunteer programme, which has so far trained about 2,000 volunteers since its launch in December last year, is targeted at training 20,000 volunteer firefighters before the end of this year.

The Director of Rural Fires at the GNFS, Deputy Chief Fire Officer (DCFO) Mr Semekor Kwaku Fiadzo, made these statements in the Sissala West District in the Upper West Region during the inspection of a burnt maize field belonging to Mr John Dimah.

Lost maize farm

Mr Dimah, who is the 2019 National Best Maize Farmer, lost his 31-acre farm to a ravaging wild bush fire last week.

Preliminary investigations by the GNFS show that the fire spread from a remote source with an unknown origin.

The disaster occurred when nobody was around.

Mr Fiadzo’s visit was, therefore, to commiserate with Mr Dimah and also offer advice on how he and other farmers could prevent bush fires.

Fire-prone areas

The DCFO said the volunteers would be trained especially in areas which were prone to bush fires and be equipped with the necessary tools to enable them to combat bush fires that were destroying a lot of property, including farmlands, private property and public installations.

Mr Fiadzo said with a target to reduce bush fires by about 40 per cent this year, the GNFS would deploy every resource at its disposal to fight bush fires.

“We are working closely with our stakeholders which include the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA), the Forestry Commission and the Information Services Department to carry out education and ensure that we reduce bush fires to the barest minimum,” he stated.

National initiatives

Mr Fiadzo advised farmers to make use of the fire volunteers as a frontline approach to firefighting at the community level.

“The volunteers have been there for some time now and we intend to revive the volunteer spirit and expand the programme to many parts of the country so that in cases of fire disaster, the volunteers can offer assistance,” Mr Fiadzo stated.

He said if the fires were not checked, they could negatively affect national initiatives such as the Planting for Food and Jobs, the Planting for Export and Rural Development, the afforestation programme and Youth in Cocoa Farming, which were pro-poor programmes initiated by the government to improve the livelihoods of the people, especially those in rural areas.

National bush fire campaign

Mr Fiadzo announced that the service would launch this year’s National Bush Fire Prevention campaign later in the year which would include the training of volunteers to combat fires.

The Upper West Region, which was prone to wildfires, had about 70 trained fire volunteers who had been well-equipped as part of the campaign to end bush fires, he noted.

The initiative, he said, would be extended to other regions of the north.

Farmer

Meanwhile, the Farm Manager of John Dimah Farms, Mr Issifu Gbene Waziru, said they had expected a yield of about 900 to 1,000 bags of maize of 50kg each, but the disaster had dashed their hopes.

“We were at a funeral at home when a call came from another farmer who reported to us what had happened, and we had no means of salvaging the crops,” he stated.