City’s EMS distributes winter safety kits in Kya Sands
03 June 2016
The City of Johannesburg’s Emergency Management Services (EMS) distributed more than 250 winter safety kits at the Msawawa informal settlement near Kya Sands during Executive Mayor Councillor Parks Tau’s visit to the Region A area on Wednesday June 1. This formed part of a drive to prevent incidents triggered by domestic fires, which often result in fatalities and loss of property in informal settlements, particularly in cold winter months.
About 1 000 households in various informal settlements – including Alexandra, Denver and Orange Farm – will receive the Jozi Safety Kits. Each safety kit consists of a para-safe stove, smoke detector, burn kit, lantern light and a 25-litre bucket that doubles up as a domestic-use fire extinguisher. The City has also taken proactive measures to train residents in the use of heating and lighting appliances in their households. Last year, EMS officers responded to 600 fire-related incidents that claimed the lives of 32 people.
Common causes of fires are explosives lighting and heating appliances that are not permitted by the National Regulator for Compulsory Specifications, candles that are not placed properly in jars, flammable materials and illegal electricity connections. Speaking during a walkabout in the informal settlement, Mayor Tau said: “This is about public safety. It’s about improving the ability of communities to address their own safety.”
The emergency safety kits were distributed to families that have been trained to mitigate fires in emergency situations. Cllr Tau said the City was targeting vulnerable areas such as Msawawa, which recorded the highest number of fire incidents.
Member of Mayoral Committee for Public Safety Councillor Sello Lemao said a number of teams were involved in the rollout of outreach programmes to highlight the dangers of shack fires and train communities to prevent fires. “By doing this kind of proactive training among communities, whenever there is a fire incident, a number of properties and even lives are saved. It’s important for communities to know the first thing to do when there are such dangers,” said Cllr Lemao.
Franscinah Khosana, who has been living in Msawawa since 2004, is part of the team that has trained community members in handling fire emergencies and attending to patients. “So far, I have trained 20 people in First Aid and fire-fighting. With this knowledge, community members will immediately and effectively put out fires in their households. We’d like to thank the City for facilitating this initiative,” said Khosana.
Since the introduction of Jozi Safety Kits in 2009, fire incidents and fatalities have been reduced by 42%.