By Omeiza Ajayi, Abuja

The Federal Government has disclosed the need to expand its National Fire Academy following a request by the Democratic Republic of Congo for Nigeria to help transform the Central African country’s fire department into full-fledged fire service.

Acting Controller General of Nigeria’s Federal Fire Service, Karebo Pere Samson disclosed this Thursday in Abuja during a media interface.

“It is becoming clearer too that the call to assist DR Congo’s Fire Department to develop and grow into a Service like ours occasions the need to expand the capacity of our National Fire Academy to an international standard in structure, infrastructure and technology; the quality of lecturers/curriculum nonetheless.

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“An extensive work must be done to raise all our training schools to international standards if we must measure up to a fire service that must stand at per with its global counterparts in performance, preparedness to respond to fire hazards and other disasters/emergencies and technology”, he stated.

The fire service boss added that Kenya has also requested collaboration with the Federal Fire Service in order to understudy how the synergy between the service and the Nigerian Air Force NAF on aerial firefighting and patrols work.

“Just this morning, I got a call from Kenya. They are seeking collaboration with us, to understudy how the synergy between us and the Nigerian Air Force works.

“This is an initiative that I just brought which we have not even started practicalizing but you can see that others are already trying to learn from us. So, there is a lot we can do when we synergize”, he stated.

The CG added that the Service is working towards deploying Drones to provide intelligence on threats around fire scenes, in the wake of incessant attacks on firefighters across the country.

“I am glad to also mention that the Minister of Interior Ogbeni Rauf Aregbeshola has also directed NSCDC to provide security for our firemen at fire scenes”, he added.

Vanguard News Nigeria