The Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) has deployed task force to ensure that institutions comply with basic fire rules and regulations to curb the prevalence of domestic fires.

This move by the Service has become necessary due to the upsurge in fires at home and some hospitality facilities in the country.

The Fire Precaution (Premises) Regulations, (LI1724) is a legislative instrument which makes it obligatory for certain premises to have fire certificates to meet fire safety standards.

According to the LI, there is the need to ensure that there are adequate exits within the premises for easy evacuation, serviceable fire-fighting facilities, among other interventions. Deputy public relations officer of the GNFS Prince Billy Anaglatey said the core duty of the taskforce is to ensure that facilities comply with basic fire rules.

This he believes will help in combating the consistent spate of fire outbreaks in the country. “There is another task force that has also been formed to get to the public places, to the hotels, schools, theatres and the places of entertainment day in day out to monitor the activities of people in there; the fire service has realized that many of these entertainment places don’t even have adequate exits”.

He added “so the task force that will be visiting those entertainment places and places of gathering will also ensure that these places have adequate exits so in case of any emergencies they will be able to get evacuated without any external assistance”.

Meanwhile, Mr. Anaglatey has bemoaned the lack of enforcement of the LI 1724 to regulate domestic fires explaining that the Legislative Instrument has not been fully applied by the service. “It is unfortunate that our legal instrument (LI) 1724 is silent over these domestic fires” he said.