New fire fighting vehicles flagged off

The State Fire and Emergency Services recently flagged off 24 fire fighting vehicles from Bikash Bhavan. The program was inaugurated virtually by Chief Minister of West Bengal, Mamata Bannerjee from Bankura though video conferencing. The vehicles were then flagged off by Fire Department Minister Sujit Bose. Giant screens were installed in front of the Bikash Bhavan which showed Banerjee inaugurating the event virtually from Bankura. The 24 vehicles which were included in the fleet included 12 water bowsers which are capable to carry 14,000 litres of water each with high and low pressure pumps that can be used as foam generators. There were 10 heavy duty breakdown vans as well which will be able to lift other vehicles and objects weighing up to five tonnes. The rest two vehicles were mobile control room vans. These state of the art mobile control room vans were luxury buses from outside but full-fledged control rooms from the inside. The mobile control rooms were equipped with four CCTV cameras for monitoring the situation outside, two telephones for communication and 20,000 lumens of illumination to light up dark spots. The State Fire and Emergency Services spent an amount of Rs 7,38,11,537 for including these vehicles into its fleet. Fire Department Minister Sujit Bose said, “We are harnessing technology as much as possible. We have five ladders of 68m, 55m, 54m, 42m and 30m height. We have acquired fire balls to combat fires in closed spaces last year. We have plans to get four robots. Where firemen cannot go in they will be sent to combat fires. We are focusing not just on fire extinguishing but also on fire prevention. So fire audits have been started in big markets”.