ONE HUNDRED and Fifty-four fire volunteers, including 30 women and 19 JSS students, have passed out at Kwahu Tafo in the Kwahu South District of the Eastern Region after a two-week intensive fire prevention and control training organised by officials of Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS), and National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO).

The volunteers, who were selected from Kwahu Tafo and Nteso, were trained to check the annual high rate of bush fires, which devastate the environment in the area.

Addressing the passing-out parade, the District Chief Executive (DCE), Mr. Raymond Osafo Djan, said bush fires rank next to HIV/AIDS in terms of its negative impact on the socio-economic development of the nation, which is causing extensive damage to the country's environment.

He, therefore, called on chiefs, farmers, cattle rearers, hunters, palm wine tappers and unit committee members to be vigilant and take all the necessary precautionary measures to avoid the annual bush fire rituals during the dry season.

The DCE said though anti-bush fire and disaster prevention campaigns are launched at the national, regional and district levels annually to create awareness, yet the people's attitude and mentality have not changed in matters relating to indiscriminate setting of fires and called for severe punishment for offenders to deter others.

He said our existence as a society is being threatened by the upsurge of the deadly HIV/AIDS pandemic and called on opinion leaders to get involved in the campaign to educate the people to change their sexual lifestyles to control the rapid spread of the disease in the district.

The Eastern Regional Fire Officer, Mr. William Brown-Acquaye, called on district and municipal assemblies to establish sub-committees on bush fires as stipulated in PNDC Law 229 and give them financial and material assistance to support the anti-bush fire programmes.

He called for mass tree planting by school children, workers, farmers and other voluntary organizations to save the environment from further degradation.

The chief of Kwahu Tafo, Nana Ameyaw Gyensiamah III, commended the volunteers for offering themselves to serve their communities to save the environment and promised to pay the school fees of the 19 JSS students next term.

Ten Wellington boots, 10 cutlasses and two rubber buckets and cups, worth ?600,000 were presented to the Tafo and Nteso groups to be used in combating bush fires in the two communities.