Bomba: 39% rise in fire rescue calls during Ops Raya 2017

KUALA LUMPUR (June 11): There were 3,354 fire rescue calls during the Ops Raya 2017 campaign, up by 39% from 2,400 calls recorded in the previous year, said the Fire and Rescue Department of Malaysia (Bomba) director-general Mohammad Hamdan Wahid (pictured) today.

He was giving a speech in conjunction with the official launch of the fire safety campaign for the Hari Raya Aidilfitri 2018 celebration and Ops Raya 2018 from June 8 to June 22.

There was also a rise in road traffic accident calls where 156 cases were reported during Ops Raya 2017 compared with 129 cases in 2016.

Meanwhile, the total rescue calls received by Bomba during the Hari Raya Aidilfitri campaign amounted to 2,095 cases in 2017 as compared to 1,449 cases the year before.

He urged the public to make sure safety is made their top priority wherever they are.

"We urge the public to make sure the main electrical supply is switched off and unused plugs are removed from the sockets before they start their journey back to their hometowns.

“Based on 29,356 overall cases reported to Bomba throughout 2017, 1,737 of the cases were caused by electrical issues," said Hamdan.

Some 11,200 officers out of the total 14,000 from Bomba as well as all the 290 fire stations will be on duty 24/7 during the festivities to assist with any emergencies as well as to shorten response time to the accident scene.

The department has also identified 18 strategic locations along the North-South highway and East Coast Highway I and II where one Fire Rescue Tender/Light Fire Rescue Tender unit with seven officers and one Emergency Response Team with three officers will be on standby throughout this whole campaign.

Housing and Local Government minister Zuraida Kamaruddin who officiated the event lauded the move by Bomba, noting that this is a good initiative and thanked the firefighters for their good work.

However, she added that the response time by the firefighters can be further improved.

"Currently, only 43% [of the firefighting team] achieved the target of a response time of under 10 minutes while 83% arrive at the scene in 20 minutes. I believe under the leadership of Hamdan, we can speed up our response time to even five minutes," she said.

She also added that there are about 280 fire posts (pos bomba) which have yet to be filled and the allocations and priorities will be given to the rural areas where help is harder to reach them in the event of emergencies.