Lilongwe gets 4 fire engines from Japan

The Japanese Embassy on Wednesday handed over four new fire engines worth $122 135 (about K48 million) to Lilongwe City Council (LCC) to boost its capacity to respond to emergency fire outbreaks in the city and surrounding districts.

In his address before handing over the fire engines to the council, Japanese Embassy charge d’affaires Shigenobu Kobayashi said the fire engines are crucial to saving people’s lives and properties in times of fire and disasters.

“Unfortunately, the Lilongwe City Council has inadequate capacity to effectively respond to fire outbreaks. A few months ago, one local newspaper reported loss of property which occurred in Lilongwe mainly caused by delayed response from Lilongwe City Council to address the fire,” said Kobayashi.

He said each of the four fire engines can carry 8 000 litres of water, saying the fire engines will also help to address the problem where firefighters also run short of water in the process of firefighting.

“The fire engines complement our efforts to support the LCC. I call upon management of the council to provide proper maintenance to ensure that the fire engines are in condition to serve the nation,” said Kobayashi.

Lilongwe City Council chief executive Richard Hara said the council had only two functioning and one repairable fire engines, saying they will now have seven fire engines to respond to fire outbreaks within and outside Lilongwe.