Business premises owners in Thika Sub County have been urged to comply with fire safety directive release by Thika fire rescue station to ensure that their customers are safe.
Speaking in his office yesterday, the officer in charge of Thika fire rescue department Mr Johnson Munyoi said that they have issued 1400 notices and most of them are to business premises and educational institutions.
The notices required the institutions to install all required equipment to fight fire incised it arises.
Mr Munyoi hailed some institution that have complied with the notice and posed a caution to those who have not installed the safety equipment saying they will be prosecuted.
“We shall make sure we prosecute all those who don’t comply with the fire notice as we don’t want to put more fire but if we prevent them from occurring that will be one of our greatest achievements,” Mr Munyoi said.
He said that equipment include fire extinguishers, fire blankets, fire alarms, fire exit labels and fire assembly points labels adding that all schools should have metallic buckets full of sand which acts as an instant option to deal with a fire risk.
Mr Munyoi said that Red Cross club and scouts have proved to be of help to the society as they offer fire safety drills to the residents and also teaches school going children how to deal with panic in case of fire.
“Prevention of fire is better and easier than putting off and that’s why we are advocating for all the parties in the society to know something about fire fighting. We also offer fire rescue drills to schools to enable them deal with fires in case the fighters are late or even fight minor fires without any injury,” He said.
This comes a few days after Kiambu county governor Mr William Kabogo awarded certificates to more than 40 graduates who graduated from Thika fire rescue centre with different fire rescue knowledge and skills.
Mr Kabogo said that fire fighters will be able to respond to the areas where fire tragedies occur and contain the tragedies objectively.