At least 65 persons were killed in the series of fire outbreaks that were recorded in 2013, out of the total of 4,171 reported cases. Forty-four (44) persons also sustained severe injuries from the burns.
The statistics showed that the Ashanti Region recorded the highest fire outbreaks with 836, Brong Ahafo with 553, Greater Accra with 547 and Central Region with 405.
According to Acting Head of Public Relations of the National Fire Service, Ellis Robinson Okoe, fire safety audits revealed that most companies did not adhere to fire safety advice, leading to various fire outbreaks in the country in 2013.
Mr. Okoe called on employers and organisations to ensure that employees are taught basic fire safety measures periodically as they also provide logistics to combat fires.
As a result the Fire Service will this year review all the safety audit for the metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies to ensure that they meet safety standards, he announced.
"If we [Fire Service] show you what to do and you don't do it then it means our work becomes difficult...so we expect the public to play their role [and] the Ghana National Fire Service will also play its role," Mr. Okoe told Joy News.
He said as part of the 2014 plan, the Service will collaborate with the Electricity Company of Ghana to intensify their safety campaigns in public places, particularly at the market centres which experienced a series of fire outbreaks last year. Several structures running into millions of cedis at the Agbogbloshie, Kantamanto, Dome, Makola No.2 and Madina markets in Accra as well as Kejetia market in Kumasi, were razed to ashes by wild fires.
Suspecting arson given the rate at which the fires occurred, President John Mahama subsequently directed the state security agencies to declare a security alert at all important public buildings and installations across the country. Government further engaged the services of forensic experts from the USA to unravel the causes of the fires.
The report submitted by the American experts was later declared inconclusive by president John Mahama. Speaking to the leaders of market fire victims at the Flagstaff House, in December, the president revealed that US experts' investigations into market fires established that the Makola Market fire was caused by illegal electrical connection but that of the Kumasi market was inconclusive.
"The Kumasi one was inconclusive because by the time they got there people had gone in and destroyed much of the evidence and so they could not find anything conccrete. With regards to the Makola we traced the source of the fire to an electrical problem", he said.
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