GNFS Unhappy With Rising Rate Of Bush Fires

The Central Regional Command of the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) complaining about the increasing rate of bush fires in the Central Region, has urged residents to be more vigilant.

The Service said it has recorded a total of 70 bush fires with barely a week to end the first month of the year, thus describing the situation ‘as very outrageous.’

Divisional Officer I, Gilbert Wiafe, who is the Regional Fire Officer, at a media briefing, told the media that incidents of bush fire cases in the region had significantly increased over the past years, in contrast to the vigorous public education.

While only 36 bush fires were recorded in the whole of 2014, last year 118 was recorded. However, the figure has seen an increase of about 59 per cent with a few days to the end of the first month of the year.

Madam Georgina Agyari-Kwabi, a Deputy Director, who led a three-member delegation from the National Headquarters to the Central Region, to ascertain the causes of bush fires and how to address the menace, said bush burning was a challenging environmental concern in the country.

She said hunters, herdsmen, farmers and cigarettes smokers did not handle fire well and were the causes for most uncontrolled and indiscriminate bush burning.

She, therefore, advised farmers to always seek the consent of fire volunteers before burning their farms.

“The effects of bush fires on rural livelihoods and on the eco-system in Ghana are increasingly becoming extensive resulting in the destruction of property worth millions of Ghana cedis,” she stated.

Ms Agyari-Kwabi called for a concerted approach in curbing the menace considering the diverse and interactive nature of the causes of bushfires and urged chiefs to expose those who deliberately set the bush on fire to the Police for their instant arrests.

Source: GNA