Fire disasters in Mombasa are becoming rampant and the county government needs to do more to check them, county assembly speaker Aharub Khatri has said.
He proposed setting up fire extinguishers in strategic places in neighbourhoods and training more people on how to fight fires.
“When a fire starts, it is small and then spreads. If it is checked while it is still small by trained people, we will prevent heavy losses,” Khatri said.
He spoke on Monday in Chaani ward where a couple was being helped start life afresh after they lost everything to an inferno four days ago.
At least six fires have been reported in the last two weeks in Mombasa.
On Friday, a house in Bamburi’s Fisheries area was razed after what was said to be an electric fault ignited a fire.
A woman was seriously injured.
In Likoni on Thursday, another fire in Maka, Timbwani ward, broke out and a couple lost everything, including their life savings which they had been keeping in the house.
Speaker Khatri said he will push MCAs to come up with a motion to have small fire extinguishers at strategic places every 10 blocks.
“We will be having like one fire extinguisher at every Nyumba Kumi. The county will either buy the extinguishers or we will have them sold at subsidised prices,” he said.
He said it does not make sense for people to have to wait for the fire brigade to come from far away, weave through traffic to get to an area where a fire started.