About a month ago, a fire broke out behind Carlton Centre in High Street.
About a month ago, a fire broke out behind Carlton Centre in High Street.
However, the staff were not able to extinguish the flames because some of the fire fighting equipment in the building was not fully operational.
When the fire department was called in, they discovered that there had been a water outage which meant the water reel and the fire hydrant could not work. According to Deon Andreas, the fire technician at Magnum Fire- a company that provides and services fire equipment- fire hydrants have to be serviced regularly to ensure their smooth operation. "I have serviced hydrants in other towns but I have never done so here."
The station commissioner at the local fire department, Vuyokazi Sam said: "Fire hydrants do not get serviced but they are continuously cleaned and flushed by the fire department or the city engineers. The problem at times is that hydrants don’t work well when the water pressure is low and of course can’t work at all without water. The pressure usually goes down in the mornings and evenings when most people are using water," Sam said. She reckons that on the whole the fire hydrants in the Grahamstown CBD are working well.
What happens if a fire breaks out during a water outage or during peak hours when the pressure is low? you may ask. "The plumbers are able to boost the pressure and our vehicles are equipped to boost pressure as well so it wouldn’t really be a problem," says Sam. With a water outage, fire fighters would have to rely on water from their vehicles to put out the fire.
In terms of fire extinguishers, there are different classes and sizes which are issued according to the size and occupancy of the building. "A person must not go 30 steps without reaching an extinguisher," says Andreas. He is also the technician that had serviced extinguishers at Carlton Centre and when asked about the incident he said, "I was amazed about what happened at Carlton Centre. I have serviced four extinguishers for them but when I went back after the fire, I only found one. On the one I found, the seal was still intact and the gauge was on green which meant the extinguisher has not been used." He added that he can only shoulder the blame when the seal is broken and when he enquired about the rest of the extinguishers, he was that told they were at Checkers as they had taken them there when they thought the fire had spread. He added that the gauge plays a big role in the extinguisher as it indicates whether the pressure is enough to extinguish flames or not. He said, "the pressure goes down when the contents of the extinguishers have hardened or when there’s a hole in the container." He also stated that the container in which the powder or foam is kept does not expire but the sticker left on it by the technician shows when the extinguisher was last serviced and when the next service will be. "The container on the other hand cannot be used when it has rusted as rust causes it to explode due to the pressure inside the container," he said.
