— Fire Service Boss urges communities to take initiative to prevent fires
The Director General of the Liberia National Fire and Rescue Service, Warsuwah Borvour has disclosed that the government is faced with huge challenges and priorities, but only pays attention to the key priorities.
Speaking during the presentation of a fire truck to the local authority of Nimba County recently, Director Borvour explained the huge challenges the fire service faces in reaching every part of Liberia, something he squarely said was due to the huge challenges the central government faced.
“What I can tell you is [that] the government is challenged, the priorities are so many; the government prioritize their priority and so if you don’t fall in line with what they are prioritizing then it becomes difficult,” he said.
In order to ease some of the challenges the government faces, Borvour has called on Liberians to come in with help so as to enable the fire service to be effective in their duty and also spread across the country.
He explained that they are doing their best with little they have, while waiting for larger support from the central government.
“We need to take the initiative,” he said. “If any of you can come from Gbarnga and group yourself and build a fire station, then we can pressure the government to do something.”
Hon. Warsuwah Borvour and entourage escorted the fire truck donated to Nimba County in July 2024 by businessman Tomah Seh Floyd.
The truck was first presented to the LNFRS for inspection and declared fit for use by firefighters before returning it to Ganta recently, although it took many months until it was finally brought to Nimba on October 3, 2024 for presentation.
Symbolically, the LNFRS handed the truck to Mr. Flyold, who in turn presented it to Nimba County Superintendent Kou Meapeh Gono, who finally presented it to the Fire Service for use.
Borvour cautioned other citizens to follow the good example of Mr. Floyd to begin organizing themselves in a similar direction to enhance the capacities of the Fire and Rescue Service to be more robust in extending to every part of the country.
He explained that President Boakai had asked him to ensure the LNFRS covered the entire country, but this requires the citizens’ support to do so.
“As you may be aware, in democracy, the government is for the people and by the people, so if the government has some challenges, you have to come in, because the fire problem is everybody’s problem,” he said.
He explained that there are three ways to fight fires — before, during and after. According to him, fighting fires before refers to the preventive aspects, which requires awareness, which he said is the best approach, because fires can be caused by ignorance and mistakes.
However, Hon. Warsuwah Borvour also assured the public that there are many things in the pipeline coming for the fire service.
“Don’t think that we are not working, we love playing Checkers or Ludo, but this is the only way to keep together in case of any fire emergency,” he said.
“In the United States or other advanced countries, they have a place for the fire fighters, where they stay together until they are called, but this is not so in Liberia, so the Checkers keeps them together,” he said.
Fire has caused mayhem in Nimba, especially in Ganta, where an Indian Dentist got trapped in a house fire in Ganta. In 2017, a minor was caught in a fire around the Congo community and died.
Over one year ago, a family of four, including a minor and an elderly woman were killed in a fire in Ganta, after a frantic efforts by citizens to extinguish the fire failed.
Recently, fire destroyed several business centres in the LPMC suburb of Ganta. Although there was no casualty, everything within the affected business centres were totally destroyed.
Business people in Ganta continue to blame the government for not doing enough to set up adequate mechanisms to fight fires.
“The government takes huge taxes from us every year and we still remain vulnerable to fire,” said one Lusine, a young businessman on the main street of Ganta.
