Tana youth opt for Internet search to operate County fire truck

A team of youth from the Mwangaza area, Tana River County on Friday evening had to turn to the Internet to find out how to operate a fire engine as they sought to save a house from burning down.

The mysterious fire that destroyed property worth hundreds of thousands of shillings at the house of Tana River’s Education accounting officer Fatuma Bona, is believed to have broken out at a few minutes past 7 pm.

According to neighbours, they noticed dark smoke emanating from the bedroom side of the house followed by a call for help from an occupant in the house. By the time they responded, the fire had grown bigger.

"We helped them out as others gathered water with baskets to put out the fire," said Salim Kalime, a neighbour.

Mr. Kalime said that the fire was getting bigger and threatened neighboring houses when they called for help from the county fire department.

The fire engines, which were parked 2 kilometres away from the incident took an hour to respond, as there was no driver or operator on call.

It took the intervention of some skilled resident driver and volunteer operators to get the vehicle on scene, where angry residents initially dismissed them, only to realize the operators were acting out of goodwill and were not County employees.

With the fire engine on-site, the residents were faced with another challenge of operating the truck, forcing them to turn to Google for firefighting procedures, before they successfully put out the fire. 

"We had to think and act fast for us to salvage the house from burning down, so we turned to Google which came in handy," said Ishmael Jumaa.

The team coordinated the exercise arresting the situation.

The residents have appealed to the county government to hire fire engine operators to be responding to such emergency cases on time.

"These trucks have been there for two years without operators. It is time they hire people for these jobs since fire incidences in the county are on the rise," said Mwanahamisi Swaleh.

Police Officers who had appeared to secure the scene were forced to flee after the rowdy mob started pelting them with stones.

However, Tana River County's Special Programs Chief Officer said that another driver had to be sourced to save the situation before it got out of hand after the fire trucks driver could not be found on the phone.

"The driver who is supposed to operate the truck was not available on phone, so we had to find someone who is equally an experienced driver to step in and save the day," she said. 

Nevertheless, she noted that the county administration is in the process of hiring a team of firefighters, noting that such situations will be handled properly next time.