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Crammed into temporary shelter accommodating
approximately 200 victims of a recent fire,
Gebeyanesh Demissie, a lady now in her 50s, appears
to have lost all hope for her family’s future. A
widow, she lives in Arada District around Yared
Music School, with her three children. Last Sunday
night turned to tragedy for the lady, whose life has
been dedicated to her children, two of whom are
mentally disabled.
On March 16, just after midnight, screams were heard
from her small house. A fire had broken out in one
of the houses in the slum neighborhood where she
lives. Gebeyanesh, whose sole source of income is
the 85Br pension she collects every month, evacuated
every member of the family and then she had to leave
her home to burn. In a matter of hours all her
possessions had turned to ashes before her very
eyes. It became impossible to save property and the
area’s residents were only able to save the lives of
family members.
“How am I ever going to recover from this loss and
continue to support my two children?” she asked, her
eyes filled with tears.
Her daughter, Rahel Taye, employed by the Ethiopian
Airports Enterprise, has been trying to help her
destitute family. She managed to slightly raise her
mother’s spirits by purchasing new home appliances
for her family. The mother and daughter were the
only breadwinners of the family, the daughter
contributing close to 600Br to the family’s monthly
budget.
Currently Gebeyanesh’s family, together with 46
other heads of household, are staying in temporary
shelter set up by the Mother Teressa Missionary
Foundation, a Canadian organization established to
help women and children in need of urgent relief.
According to the Woreda Police, the fire began in
the compounds of Tsehaynesh Bezabih, who lives in a
Kebele-owned house. She had rented one of her houses
to two women Zenash and Tigist-who were apprehended
by the police for allegedly instigating the fire. It
has been claimed that the two women were fighting
over personal matters.
After the detection of the fire, residents of the
locality informed the nearest fire brigade, which
sent a crew to the scene but they emerged with just
a single fire fighting vehicle and a whole hour
after the fire had begun. More fire fighting squads
would appear at the location later.
“Only two houses were burned to the ground by the
time the fire fighters came to the place,” says
Meles Hunde, a resident of the area. “However, the
man in charge declined to take any action claiming
that he was expecting instruction from his
supervisor.”
It is not just Meles who directs blame at the
firefighters. Most of the victims appear to believe
that the brigade showed negligence.
The Addis Abeba Fire and Emergency Service (AAFES)
have disputed these claims. The principal reasons
for the huge toll that followed the fire outbreak,
they have stated, was the delay of the residents in
dialing the right emergency number coupled with
problems with electricity in the area.
“People were dialing 912, a number that wasn
replaced six months ago by 939,” said Legesse Kebede,
the acting head of the Public Relations and
Awareness Creation Department at the AAFES. “We have
circulated this change in the distribution of three
million brochures and calendars and in addition we
have made TV and radio announcements. They were not
able to make contact us quickly because they were
not attentive to the change in number.” The right
number was finally found from a resident, who was
actually an employee of the AAFES.
Ketema Teklu, member of the (AAFES) says that the
brigade reached the scene four minutes after
receiving the first call, claims that the team was
unable to act quickly because of the source of
electricity in the area was unsafe. “We were forced
to fight the fire with the pressure of the public
before the electricity supply was seized,” he told
Fortune. “The water made contact with two
electricity lines which created another fire forcing
us to stop our efforts.” It has been claimed that it
took another 30 minutes for the Ethiopian Electric
Power Corporation (EEPCo) to cut power.
Another problem in extinguishing the fire came
simply from the geography of the area where there is
only a single narrow road which prevented fire
fighting vehicles from getting close to the fire.
Furthermore, the nearest sources of water, in
Afenchober and Menen, are experiencing shortages at
the moment. “A single vehicle took five minutes,
instead of the usual three minutes, to fill its
tanker,” said one of the fighters. “That two minute
difference makes for a big difference in
firefighting.”
The appalling impact of the fire is felt the most by
people like Gebeyanesh. She says that she is unable
to stand up to another such tragedy.
One fire fighter, Legesse, recalls his recent
experience where a fire broke out in Bole Michael
four months ago: “After we set out from the Bole
wing to fight the fire, our vehicle broke down in
the middle of the street,” he told Fortune.
Legesse acknowledges that a lot needs to be done to
raise the standard of firefighting in the area.
There are just ten fire extinguishing vehicles
available in the fire brigade and he says this does
not match the demands of this vast city. “There are
moves to procure two more vehicles and hire 200 more
fire fighters that will be trained in our training
facility,” said Legesse. “This will boost our
capacity.”
However, his concern goes beyond capacity. He
considers the fact that most of the houses in the
metropolis are built without a gapenough to let
large vehicles pass through to be a huge problem for
firefighters.
The AAFES was established in 1934 under the former
Police Commission. In 2002, it was restructured and
established as an independent entity. The fire
brigade has six branches in the city which have
single vehicles each except for the larger the Arada
Branch, which is also the headquarters of the
organisation. The Arada Branch also has vehicles
that can fight fire in multiple storey buildings
with their 24-72mt cranes.
The brigade is constructing a training facility in
Akaki Kality District on 20,000 sqm plot of land
that cost 10 million Br. It has been claimed that
the construction, which is expected to be finalised
next year, would accommodate 250 trainees. Upgrading
the capacity of the city fire guards is what all the
residents of the city require in order that they
avoid the fate of those such as Gebeyanesh.
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