Gauteng's trio of metro municipalities do not have enough fire trucks and firefighters, with the City of Johannesburg only operating with half of the fire engines it needs to respond to emergencies.
An assessment report on the state of the metros' readiness to respond to a disaster is under way according to the head of the Gauteng disaster management centre Tshepo Motlhale.
Motlhale said while the state of readiness report looks positive so far, there are still problems in Joburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni to ensure that they have firefighters who are employed in line with the SA standards.
He said weaknesses in the municipalities included not having enough fire trucks and enough firefighters.
Gauteng is the most populated province in the country with more than 15-million people .
It also has the highest number of informal settlements and densely populated areas.
“In all the municipalities, there are still some challenges to ensure that we have firefighters that are employed in line with the SA standards,” Motlhale said.
“In terms of the international standards and SA standards, we must have one firefighter per 1,000 population but that is a challenge in the country and we cannot confirm that the municipalities are meeting these particular standards,” he said.
In all the municipalities, there are still some challenges to ensure that we have firefighters that are employed in line with the SA standards
— Tshepo Motlhale, head of the Gauteng disaster management centre
The recent devastating fires in Los Angeles in the US have brought into focus cities' preparedness for disaster and emergencies around the world.
In Johannesburg, emergency services spokesperson Robert Mulaudzi said the city, which attends to between 250 to 300 fires a month, has been operating on half the fire trucks it needed.
Mulaudzi said the city has 30 fire stations and, according to standards, each is required to have one fire truck. However, the city only has 15. With their response time to disasters expected to be 15 minutes, he said they aren't able to stick to that time due to resource limitations.
“Generally, the response time has been affected because of the limited resources, we cannot run away from that. If we had the 30 [fire trucks], then it would be fine because it would mean every station would have its own and we would be able to operate,” he said.
DA spokesperson for public safety Solomon Maila in the City of Joburg said it was unacceptable that a city as huge as Joburg does not have an adequate number of fire engines when there are hundreds of informal settlements that are vulnerable to fires.
“The impact has been dire. Ideally, we should have at least 10 fire engines in each of the seven regions of the city to cater to the six-million residents.”
Wynand Engelbrecht, chief fire officer at Fire Ops SA, a privately owned firefighting brigade in Johannesburg, told Sowetan that Joburg was the least equipped compared to the City of Tshwane and Ekurhuleni to handle fire incidents in terms of skill and manpower.
Ekurhuleni's emergency services spokesperson William Ntladi said the city has 30 fire stations with a minimum of one fire truck in each of them. He did not give their average response time, saying it depends on the distance between two points, the incident scene and the fire station.
In a written response to questions from the DA in November, MMC of community safety in Ekurhuleni Sizakele Masuku said out of the 135 firefighting vehicles the city had, only 41 fire engines were operational.
DA Ekurhuleni spokesperson for community safety Jaco Terblanche yesterday said the metro does not have the resources which include manpower and vehicles.
“They might have vehicles on paper but in terms of operation, it is not functional.
“Some fire stations don't even have one fire truck that is in a workable condition and the other [fire stations] might have one but would lack a pumper.”
In Tshwane, emergency services spokesperson Lindsay Mnguni said there were 21 fire stations in the city and each had a fire engine. In some cases, a station has a backup engine or an alternative firefighting resource such as a ladder/truck company or a water tanker, in the case where a vehicle in that station is in for service or maintenance, he said.
Mnguni said their response time was 14 minutes which was in line with the National Treasury standards.
“As the department, we always strive to respond within the average response time of 14 minutes as set out by the National Treasury by dispatching resources nearer to the incident,” he said.
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