By Gwendolyn Pang / Secretary-General, Philippine Red Cross
Aside from natural disasters, nothing equals the devastation to life and property that a great conflagration brings to a community. Paradoxically, fire incidents are also highly preventable, if safety measures against fire hazards are known and observed by the general populace without exception.
But once it starts, putting out fires immediately is crucial, because there is a high degree of possibility that it will spread within minutes to other households if not stopped, especially in urban areas, where certain communities are like bombs waiting to explode due to congestion.
Over the years, the Philippine Red Cross (PRC) has partnered with the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP), as well as numerous volunteer firefighter associations and groups, to combat fires, to contain blazes before they go out of control and cause tremendous damage to properties and, worse, loss of life.
For our part, the PRC responded with our own fleet of fire trucks all over the country about 300 times, and transported 54 injured or burned patients to hospitals to obtain critical medical attention, while having ambulance responses to similar events more than 500 times nationwide.
Last year the PRC assisted 14,020 families all over the country who suffered the ordeal of having their homes burned down. In all, there were 7,728 structures estimated to be damaged or gutted down in 2015.
According to the BFP, the incidents of fires in recent years have somehow gone down, but the number of affected families and the loss of lives have increased. No matter the statistics, the sheer number and intensity of these incidents do have a severe economic impact not only on the local economy, but on the lives of those affected.
Instead of spending hard-earned money on daily necessities, health care and reconstruction of homes take up the bulk of a family’s expenditures once they have been struck by fire.
Red Cross’s capacity to respond to fire incidents
For our part, the PRC is on full alert 24/7 nationwide to respond to these emergencies with our fire trucks, water tankers and trained firefighters. Emergency medical teams and ambulance units are also regularly dispatched alongside our fire brigade to ensure that people who need medical attention are given timely treatment of their wounds or injuries, even trauma.
PRC Chairman Richard Gordon has worked extremely hard to make sure that our fire department, which is the only one existing throughout the Red Cross Red Crescent movement worldwide, is always capable of delivering on its humanitarian mission to save lives.
So when a fire breaks out, the Red Cross is more than able and willing to engage. Not only that, but in the aftermath of the blaze, the rest of our organization is able to provide assistance to affected communities in the form of hot meals, food and nonfood items, and even psychosocial support to displaced families in evacuation centers.
The PRC’s efforts are only possible, because our partners cooperate with us by providing the resources necessary to maintain a highly trained, well-equipped and motivated firefighting unit.
The need to address issues/needs of volunteer fire brigades
Because putting out fires requires a concerted effort, private groups like the PRC and volunteer fire brigades work together to help local government units respond to fire incidents. Volunteer fire brigades are groups of concerned citizens who have banded together to bridge the gap in the capacity of the BFP to respond to fire incidents, in various areas all over the Philippines. These firefighters are just ordinary folks who care very much about their community.
In my discussion with Rolley So, president of the Fire Brigade and Communications Group Inc., their members acquire their own equipment, and the quality of such will depend on the volunteer’s capacity to buy, so these equipment are usually old and worn-out already, and may not comply with new standards in firefighting.
The availability of operational requirements, like fuel for their water tankers, as an example, also depends solely on the goodwill of donors. When injured, these volunteer firefighters can only rely on free medical treatment from supportive hospitals. They do not have logistical support from the BFP. But the work of volunteer fire brigades is crucial to every community, and their heroic example is an inspiration to all of us. And so we have to look out for their welfare, because they may be the only ones standing between us and certain death, when we become victims of an inferno.
Unfortunately, volunteer firefighters sometimes do their work without the necessary protective gear, which tragically makes them highly susceptible to injury, or even death. Most of them also do not have the proper training, or knowledge of protocols on how to coordinate their response—and that sometimes leads to confusion and competition on the ground.
And because of the lack of training, their skills are not improved over time, putting them in serious risks when dealing with the different causes and nature of fire incidents, like those that stem from chemical or some other extraordinary cause. Even sadder is the fact that most fire brigade volunteers are not covered by insurance, which compounds the precarious nature of their employment.
These, and other issues, are perhaps a reflection of the lack of a national organization of volunteer fire brigades, which would be tasked to organize and professionalize their ranks. There should be standards set for these groups, and the BFP’s leadership on this issue is the catalyst for its eventual realization.
All of us must apply the lessons of Fire Prevention not only in the month of March but observe it throughout the year. This underlines the fact that putting out fires is everybody’s concern, and it is also within everybody’s capacity to contribute to organizations that do this voluntarily.