PENAMPANG LACK OF FIRE HYDRANTS

BURNT …. Stephen photo in front of the burnt houses.

By : DAP MEDIA

THE recent fire outbreak in the Kg. Koidupan in Penampang next to the KDCA building caused the lost of four timber houses and the homes for the families staying there along with their belongings and cars. It is very lucky that there were no casualties.

The Sabah DAP Kapayan Chief Stephen Jacob Jimbangan was on site to comfort the victims and to see how he can provide assistance to them. Stephen said he was told that the reason for the delay in saving the houses were mainly due to the narrow road at the kampong which was jammed and parked with many cars on both sides due to certain nearby KDCA function was going on. The kampong folks had to help to move and carry the cars to a side to allow the Bomba vehicles to pass through. The caused a long delay while the fire kept spreading.

The fire hydrant was not found in the kampong and in fact there is no such fire hydrant nearby. The water pressure in this kampong is normally very low. The Bomba was forced to suck the water from the nearby drain to fight the fire. By then it was too much delay caused, and the fire had gutted the four units of houses and burnt them to the ground.

Stephen called upon the Jabatan Air and Bomba to inspect the whole Penampang area and to install more fire hydrants in the kampongs in order that any future fire can be controlled and killed quickly. It is not expensive to install the fire hydrants, but this will be needed during any fire outbreak, and the speedy action and the time is important to save the people and their belongings.

It is not only in the Kg. Koidupan needed the fire hydrants, but there are many other kampongs in Penampang area requires the installation. The Bomba and the Water Department should jointly work with the kampong folks to identify and to get the fire hydrants installed.

On the other hand the emergency telephone of 999 that we usually call for help during emergencies is just a general emergency telephone number that is for directing your calls from the main centre to the various emergency departments like police, bomba, ambulance, rescue and others. In order to get quickly and directly one should call directly to:-

(1) 994---Bomba/fire brigade and rescue

(2) 993---hospital ambulances

(3) 991---Rescue 991

(4) 15454---SESB 24-hour power emergency service

(5) 100---Telekom complaints hotline

(6) 112---Handphone emergency call line