A total of 21 Fire fighters drawn from various sub-counties of Nakuru on Friday March 1, 2024 graduated after undergoing a two-weeks’ training to equip their skills.
The lot was trained courtesy of Nakuru County Government in partnership with the Kenya Defence Forces(KDF).
The training that took place at Agricultural Training Centre-Soilo, focused on skills and also the emotional support on how to address various issues that come with disaster.
Speaking when she graced the event, Nakuru County CECM for Public Service, Citizen Engagement, Devolution and Disaster Management Jacqueline Osoro revealed that this is a move taken by the county government to ensure fire fighters have the required skills.
The skills, she noted are key in the fight against fires and other disasters.
While noting that Nakuru has three fire stations; Naivasha,Nakuru City and Molo, the CECM was quick to point out that as per the recently launched County Integrated Development Plan 2023-2027, every sub county shall have a station.
“Currently, we have three disaster management stations, but as per CIDP, we intend to have stations in all sub-counties,” she stated.
Nakuru has been mapped to be facing disaster among them Fire, floods and accidents along the Nairobi-Nakuru Highway.
For this reason, such trainings will go a long way in addressing the same through equipped human resource.
“We are equiping our human resource towards addressing such disaster and make their work better,” she said.
Moving forward, The County Integrated Development Plan that is already in place will see partnership to have calls on one dispatch centre.
Toll free number also in place 0800724138.
The trained fire fighters also demonstrated how they go about their work(Drill) with teamwork playing key role in disaster management.
CECM Osoro called on public to work closely with the department.
“Let’s embrace the fire fighters, a times the lateness issue on the disaster incident are is not their making. with collaboration we can go far,” she said.
She admitted that county government of Nakuru is in the process of addressing disaster management human resource shortage.
Sentiments echoed by Chief Officer Alice Abuki who lauded the county government under the leadership of Governor Susan Kihika for the support towards the department.
She added that the four fire engines are well equipped, but with the expansion to other sub counties, there is need for more engines as outlined in the CIDP.
“The county government has continued to support the department. The four fire engines are functional but with the huge load, there is need for additional. The CIDP launched recently by Governor has addressed the same,” she said.
Chief Fire Officer Julius Yator on his part called for more collaboration adding that disaster management a times leaves many emotionally perturbed hence need for moral support.
He called on the CECM to ensure the staff who are on contracts are permanently employed.
“We need a sitting with Governor so that we can address some of the challenges we are facing in our line of duty,” he said.
Patrick Kabue(Assistant Chief Fire officer) lauded the training.
According to him, they have been trained on terrorism, house fires,incident command system, equipment etc
It should be noted that a second group of fire fighters and disaster management shall be trained soon towards improving service delivery.
Author: Pristone Mambili
A trained Journalist with passion for Radio and online Writing.