UK firm donates $1,5m fire engines, equipment to Harare

By The NewsDay | Sep. 30, 2014 | 2 Min read

HARARE City Council yesterday took delivery of two fire engines and firefighting equipment worth $1,5 million donated by United Kingdom-based Operation Florian.

FELUNA NLEYA

Speaking at the handover ceremony, Harare mayor Bernard Manyenyeni said the donation came at a time when the local authority’s firefighting department was operating at 25% capacity due to shortage of equipment.

“The impact of these two fire engines would be very tremendous in the city’s emergency preparedness position,” said Manyenyeni, adding that council had paid £46 000 (about $74 000) towards shipping costs.

Manyenyeni said currently, the council was relying on four donated fire engines, three from Peter Lobel and one from Operation Florian.

He added that the Insurance Council of Zimbabwe had pledged to donate additional fire tenders.

“The equipment is only 25% of our requirements. I call upon all other stakeholders, especially those in the property and transport industry, to put their heads together and agree how best they can assist their city,” Manyenyeni said.

“These are the people with huge investments that are prone to disasters like fires. We need to resource our city so that we are able to protect the investments for future generations.”

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Manyenyeni also revealed that Operation Florian had carried out a two-week training programme with the fire brigade.

“To facilitate the training programme, five trainers were seconded to Harare and a container of training equipment was shipped from the United Kingdom,” Manyenyeni said.

“The first course dealt with key issues such as breathing apparatus set familiarisation, standard breathing apparatus tests for sabre contour, donning and entry control procedure, gauge interpretation, door entry procedure, casualty handling and search procedure.

“The courses were designed to equip our officials with requisite skills to apply during an emergency situation.”