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Drivers in the Brong -Ahafo Region, particularly those that operate commercial vehicles do not know how to use fire Extinguisher, the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) has revealed.

According to the Sunyani Municipal operations Officer for the GNFS, ADO1 Karim Abdulai, most of their investigations on why vehicles that catch fire are torched completely is because drivers did not know basic fire fighting techniques which consist of the use of extinguishers.

ADO1 Abdulai's comments follow two saloon cars which caught fire at two separate locations within the Central Business District of Sunyani within a period of five hours last Friday.

But for the timely intervention of fire fighters,the second incident which happened infront of a Total filling Station at Rex in Sunyani could have caused havoc since the driver and the pump attendants could not fight the fire.

Although there were no casualties, Mr Abdulai bewailed drivers' ignorance on fire fighting.

"If these drivers had adhered to our basic fire fighting techniques, the damages on their cars would have been minimised... in both cases they had fire extinguishers but could not operate them", he noted.

The fire man believed many drivers in the region were using expired extinguishers, which he pleaded with the Police to help check.

Residents Don't Know Emergency Numbers

Mr Abdulai also revealed it was a worrying trend that residents in the Sunyani Municipality did not know emergency numbers to call when there were fire outbreaks though they had put them in the public domain.

He said: " When the car caught fire, people blamed us for not arriving on time after calling us but when I found out they had called 190 and 999 which are not our numbers."

He mentioned their number as 192 via Vodafone and 0352027129 via other networks.

He insisted that the 192 when dialled via Vodafone comes direct to their Sunyani office and advised it be memorised by the public for their good.