About GFRS
Background Information
The Fire Brigade was created as a unit of the police in 1949 by the fire Brigade Act of 1948. In 1968 Cadet Fire Officer Z.B. King was appointed, in 1978 Mr. King became Chief Fire Officer. In 1979 Cadet Fire Officer Roger Bakurin was appointed and in 1982, the Fire service became a Department under the Ministry of the interior. In 1993 the fire brigade becomes the Gambia Fire and Ambulance Service and now the Gambia Fire and Rescue Service. In 1999 Mr. King was appointed the Inspector General of Police (IGP) and the Deputy Chief Fire Officer Roger became Chief Fire Officer on the 1 June, 1999. The Gambia fire and Rescue Services is the department tasked with the responsibility of saving lives and property in the country. We save lives of both humans and animals from wells, rivers, on top of trees, buildings, from crash airplanes, from devastating car accidents. We rescue from toilets and also, we drain water from flooded compounds or premises. The Gambia fire and rescue service perform four major roles in the Gambia.
- TO SAVE LIFE
- TO PREVENT PEOPLE’S PROPERTY FROM BEING DESTROYED BY FIRE
- TO RENDER HUMANITARIAN SERVICES
- PROTECTION OF THE ENVIRONMENT.
SAVE LIFE
The Gambia Fire and Rescue Services saves all kinds of life ranging from human to animals, domestic to wild, from wells, traffic accidents, at sea etc. TO PREVENT PEOPLE’S PROPERTY FROM BEING DESTROYED BY FIRE the fire service is responsible of preventing people’s property from being destroyed by fire this is why the fire fighters have the following duties to PREVENT,PROTECT and RESPOND.PREVENT In other to prevent fire out breaks the fire safety unit is going out to meet the people in their communities and schools to educate them on the common causes of fire and their prevention. Since we cannot handle it along as a department we hope the Gambian people can join us to save our property. PROTECT When fire occur and fire fighters are informed early they protect property that are not yet involved in the fire to prevent the fire from spreading to cause further disaster. RENDER HUMANITARIAN SERVICES Fire fighters render these services during disasters such as flood, earthquakes, building collapse etc. The Gambia Fire and Rescue Services also have paramedic clinics in five out of the eleven fire stations in the country. Clinics are found at the headquarters in Banjul. Churchill’s town, Bansang, Jarra soma and Farafenni. At these clinics we perform blood test: HB, BF, WBC COUNT, VDRL AND SICKLE CELL, URINALYSIS, HCG AND DRESSING. Any were you are in the country you can access our free medical services.
It is often claimed that the GFRS does not respond early when a fire incident occurs and in most of the Cases when they arrive they don’t have enough water to extinguish the Fire.
GFRS: we face lot of Challenges that causes our delay in reaching at destinations where fire out- break occurs.
1. Most of the people in the Gambia who make calls to the fire service for help use the 118 service which is set to all the telephones of the various telephone companies in the country as an emergency number for the fire service; but we have some problems in using it because a recorded tune is set to this number that tells the caller “this is the fire service your number is recorded please hold on” and the message will be repeated two or three times. Some people misunderstand this and concluded by saying I call the fire service and they ask me to hold on while my house is burning, we want people to know that when you call this number you should exercise patient for about 30 seconds before you will be connected to the fire service who will ask your name, were you calling from and the type of fire so to avoid all these.
STRUCTURE
The Gambia Fire and Rescue Services after being established as a department of its own, has achieved a lot under the dynamic leadership of Mr. SANG C NDOW. The Gambia Fire and Rescue Services (G. F.R.S) is now a well-structured department which is now headed by a Chief Fire Officer Sang c Ndow, who is assisted by a Deputy Chief Fire Officer (D.C.F.O) and six other Assistant Chiefs (A.C) each heading a different section within the department. The Gambia Fire and Rescue Services have moved from having two Fire Stations in the Country which is Banjul fire station (Headquarters) and Airport Fire Station to having Eleven Fire Stations Six Sea Rescue Stations Five Paramedic Clinics all over the country. Today the Gambia Fire and Rescue Services has employed more than one thousand personnel of which 25% are Female and recently, we have recruited the largest batch of 275 recruits.
CAPACITY BUILDING
The Gambia Fire and Rescue Services has made lots of achievements in building the capacity of its personnel, every year the Gambia Fire and Rescue Services personnel are trained by Avon Fire Fighters from the U.K and the Turkeys Konya fire authority to enhance good service delivery in all aspect of our jobs.
In 2010 ADO Yaya Fanneh, DO Binta Kintehwere sent to Malaysia to study STRUCTURAL FIRE FIGHTING. In July 2010 DO Bunja Keita and Station Officer Kaddy Mendy also studied in Malaysia. 2011 S.D.O Yaya Sonko and Station Officer Mohamadou Drammeh were sent to India to study Disaster risk management and mitigation. The Gambia Fire and Rescue Services also sent Ass Chief Fire Officer Massaneh SK Bah, and Ass. Chief Fire Officer Odel Mansal to Serbia to study CHEMICALS and BIO CHEMICALWEAPONS. All these people are back and are now sharing the information throughout the brigade, so that together we can better save the lives and property of all Gambians. Presently we have many graduates in the fire brigade from the University of the Gambia and most of the high institutions in the country. Presently we also have 60 personnel currently undergoing studies in most of the high institutions we have in the country.
The Gambia Fire and Rescue Services have lots of plans in the future ranging from training of staffs, building new fire and rescue stations, promotions of staffs etc. Some of the plans include: To complete the Bajakunda Fire and Rescue Station Junior Staff Quarters