KARACHI, Sept 27: As many as three fire-fighters have lost their lives and another eight were injured since January 2006 while struggling to extinguish fire in various localities of Karachi, especially in industrial areas, mainly owing to lack of sophisticated extinguishing equipment in the fire department of city district government.

One of the firemen is still in critical condition, sources in fire department told PPI.

The recent incident took place last Saturday night when fire erupted in a chemical factory in SITE during which three fire-fighters sustained serious injuries and rushed to hospitals.

An official of the fire department, who did not want to be identified, told that fire-fighters put their lives in danger to control fire and save others but they did not even enjoy quality medical treatment.

“Wounded firemen are taken to government hospitals where they have to wait for being treated for a spell of time which cause their injuries to become serious,” he deplored lack of medical facilities to fire-fighters.

He said the city government should arrange better medical treatment for fire-fighters in government as well as in private hospitals so that they could be saved from any severe loss, including loss of life.

Rehan Siddiqi, Additional Secretary to City Nazim, however, rejected this claim that injured firemen were not being treated properly.

“City Nazim Mustafa Kamal himself tackles situations like fire on a large scale,” he pointed out, adding “quality medical treatment is given to affected fire-persons besides being compensated”.

Apart from lack of medical facilities as mentioned by the fire department official, there is also a severe dearth of modern and sophisticated equipment in the department.

Whenever a devastating fire incident takes place almost entire fleet of city's fire tenders is employed to douse the raging fire but it often fails to promptly control the situation.

For example when a fire engulfed a factory, manufacturing plastic and flammable material, early September, almost all fire snorkels were called in there and despite the presence of entire fleet, it faced even shortage of water and the fire department had to use filthy water from a storm-water drain in the fire fighting operation.

The official of fire department said it was need of the time to transform fire department into a well-trained and well-equipped fire-fighting service so that any devastating incident could be prevented in future.—PPI