The response of the Cebu City Fire Department to the recent fire that hit a downtown mall has been sadly dismal. For it took firefighters, using all their available equipment, two days to put the fire under control.
The city firefighters may now hold the record of a fire department with the longest response to a fire in the world. Of course two days are obviously long enough to put out a fire that was only contained to a certain establishment.
But in fairness to them, the city firefighters said they were not allowed by a mall representative to immediately enter the burning establishment. “We entered the burning building roughly four hours after we responded to the fire where things were already worse,” Cebu Fire Marshal Aderson Comar said.
Well, we cannot dispute the management’s decision. It is a decision that was based purely on business aspect. But whatever such decision, the City Fire Department had no other way except to succumb to the will of the management.
The city firefighters had admitted they lack modern equipment to operate during unusual conditions. There are many incidents in which they had a hard time battling the fire sweeping through thickly populated areas, owing mainly to the lack of vehicles that can pass through narrow roads.
For a highly urbanized area, it is unbelievable that Cebu City has an ill-equipped fire department. We have yet to see our firefighters having modern ladders that will enable them to battle fire in high-rise buildings. Besides, many of its vehicles are old that some are already unserviceable, now gathering dust at fire stations.
The problem is that our local officials seem to have not seen the need to modernize the City Fire Department. It’s sad that while firefighters are in need of modern equipment, some city councilors are lobbying for funds to buy fire vests for themselves, as if responding to a fire to put it out is one of their prime duties as local lawmakers.
There is certainly an urgent need to upgrade the capability of the City Fire Department, whose modernization has become a necessity. And to do that requires a bigger budget from the city government.