Cape Town ups the ante in firefighting equipment

The City of Cape Town’s Fire and Rescue service has researched and formulated a new strategy to be implemented this year, as part of summer readiness to tackle wildfires.

Chief Fire Officer Clinton Manuel says it focuses on resources that will function as a rapid response to fire emergencies.

Manuel was speaking in Goodwood, where authorities unveiled the strategy along with a practical demonstration. He says the usage of smaller vehicles will allow for close range access to the fire where the bigger vehicles cannot.

“And you would think last year the number of fires that we faced, so it forced our management team to go back and look at data so we could see where these fires occurred and where we spent the most of our time. It forced me to think about a strategy whereby we become way more effective than sending one of these big fire pumpers to a fire. Often they need to run out copious lengths of fires and the fire engine only carries 16 lengths of fires. And this caused the problem where we had vehicles available, smaller well adapted vehicles that got easier access to these fires.”