Cape Town - Leaders in the Masiphumelele community in Noordhoek are hopeful that the recently forged relationship with the City will ensure that firefighters will be able to do their job in peace when responding to shack fires.
After allegations that Masiphumelele residents threatened firefighters and damaged their hosepipes during the November 21 fire, the community leaders will now be trained as fire marshals and assist firefighters on the scene with crowd control, fire prevention, and ensuring hydrants and booster valves are accessible. This will give birth to the Masiphumelele Fire Watch.
With the festive season being synonymous with informal settlements fires, community leader Mkhululi Mfiki said this relationship would go a long way in ensuring the safety of the firefighters and enabling them to perform their duties with no interference from the residents when responding to incidents.
Fire and Rescue Service spokesperson Jermaine Carelse confirmed that a meeting took place on December 7 between a delegation of Masiphumelele community leaders and officers from the Kommetjie Road fire station.
He said the parties agreed that for firefighters to effectively engage in firefighting and other emergency activity in Masiphumelele, there was a need to work together.
Carelse praised the Masiphumelele community leadership for their openness and willingness to engage with the Fire and Rescue Service.
While Mfiki said they were looking forward to the working relationship with the firefighters, he maintained that no hosepipes were vandalised by residents during the November 21 fire. Mfiki said when the firefighters arrived, the hosepipes were already perforated.
“The community is not well versed on how the firefighters work, but the expectation is that the response is on time and that the fire is extinguished speedily.
“The source for these quarrels is how they approach the situation, which we believe must be to prevent the fire from spreading to other shacks, while they believe the focus must be on the burning shacks, which we believe leads to more shacks burning down. To them, we are interfering, but as expected, we cannot wait and watch our homes burning down. However, we want to see how this relationship will be beneficial for both parties,” he said.
Safety and security mayco member JP Smith said the Disaster Risk Management agreed in the meeting to do the Community Base Risk Assessment Training. He said the recent occurrences of hampering firefighting efforts were not specific to Masiphumelele; they occurred across various areas.
Smith said the City was hopeful the meaningful relationships that have since been forged with the leadership of the Masiphumelele community will allow the emergency responders to deliver an improved service when the need arises.
He said the City had previously undertaken similar initiatives aimed at educating the affected communities on the importance of adhering to and complying with instructions by responders.