With the change in weather conditions, there’s a likelihood of an increase in fire disasters in Sierra Leone, a senior official of the country’s fire department service said recently.

Therefore, National Fire Force Divisional Officer Fatmata Bintu Kamara warned the public to be very cautious as fire outbreaks tend to spread easily during the dry season.

This, Kamara said, is because more wind gusts tend to blow up in the atmosphere; thus, those living in disaster-prone areas should be cautious.

“I want to tell people that they should be more careful, especially, this time of the season. Because we are presuming to have more fire incidents now than any other time – for the simple reason that fire thrives more easily during the dry season, especially this harmattan. And for people living in these disaster-prone areas, they should be very much careful in the way they carry out their activities, to prevent fires”, Kamara said.

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In the Northern Hemisphere, the weather is divided into four seasons – spring, summer, fall, and winter.
Whereas, in West Africa, the weather is generally divided into rainy and dry seasons.

But a period in the dry season has a weather condition called Harmattan a cool dry wind that blows between November ending to mid-March.

She further advised the public to use precautionary measures in their homes to avert fire disasters.

“When there are fire incidents in such areas, it becomes very much difficult for us to go to these places and remedy the situation”, Kamara said.

Of the precautionary measures to be taken, Kamara advised people to refrain from smoking while in bed, switch off their consumer units when away from home, stop overloading electrical appliances and extensions, use extensions per appliance electrical consumption, and seek professional electrical services to maintenance homes after certain years, among others.

Kamara encouraged the people to make sure that they’re equipped with fire extinguishers in their houses in case of fire emergencies.

But equally so, they should have smoke detectors to go with the fire extinguishers in their homes and offices.

“That will help a lot for you to take the practical approach, because, when once there is an incident, you will be able to curb the fire even before you call out the fire service. I think having an extinguisher and a smoke alarm installed in your house, will save you from fire up to 70 to 80%. You will never have such occurrences because the smoke alarm will give you the warning that something is about to go wrong, and you’ll simply use the extinguisher to extinguish the fire yourself without even needing to call the fire service”, Kamara said.

She concluded that the public should always call them on time to report fire incidents.

The toll-free numbers to call the fire department from within Freetown, the capital city, is 300 for the headquarters; 301 for east of Freetown; 302 for Aberdeen; and 309 for far east in Rokel.

And 311 is the toll-free number to call for the entire country.

All of these numbers, Kamara disclosed, can be reached using any phone network in the country without the need to buy credit from them.