WORRIED by the high spate of fire incidents that destroyed property worth millions of naira especially in the last dry season, the Ondo State government is contemplating giving autonomy to its Fire Service, which currently is a department under the Ministry of Works to make it more efficient.

    Under the proposed arrangement, the Service would have its own separate budget to have the financial muscle needed to purchase the required fire-fighting trucks and other equipment and to train its personnel in the modern process of fire control.

     According to Gboye Adegbenro, the Commissioner for Works, who disclosed this to The Guardian in Akure yesterday, the new arrangement will also exhibit the seriousness that the government takes issues of fire accidents and other emergency situations while the Service would be relieved of the bureaucratic bottlenecks it currently faces under a bigger Ministry.

     The commissioner who expressed regrets about the inability of the Service to rise up to some fire incidents last December said “after the Arakale fire incident in Akure where a gas retail outlet went up in flames, we have had 46 others across the state including the one in Araromi Akure that killed a medical doctor.

      “This got government very worried and certain important steps were immediately taken to forestall similar incidents in the future but the most important, which I think is revolutionary, is removing the Fire Service from the Works Ministry and giving it autonomy. This will allow our firemen to have their own budget for their trainings and purchase of equipment.

    “The governor, Dr. Olusegun Mimiko has already set up a committee to look at the modalities of a new autonomous Fire Service for this state and members have commenced work. I know that very soon we will have a template for the new initiatrive.”

    Adegbenro disclosed that the state government placed order for three fire trucks and that two have been delivered but “out of the two, one did not meet our specifications so we returned it to the supplier. We have not abandoned the Service at all.

      “Even as I speak to you four brand new fire trucks have been donated to us by the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) but they insisted on commissioning those trucks before they are finally delivered to us for use.”

     The commissioner who expressed hope that the Ondo Fire Service, “after the re-organization would become the best in this country,” however appealed to the population to take safety first before any other things in their daily dealings.