Counties’ response questioned as fires rage

Fire fighters salvage what was left of a dormitory that was gutted by an inferno at St Patrick’s Iten in Elgeyo-Marakwet County on July 26, 2016. According to the Kenya National Fire Brigade Association, there are only 480 trained firefighters in the country. PHOTO | JARED NYATAYA | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • According to the estimates, each county needs to spend at least Sh81 million to build, fully equip and staff one fire station or a total of Sh4 billion to make sure each county had at least one functional, fully equipped fire station.

The rise in school fires in which property worth at least Sh500 million has gone up in smoke have raised questions about the county government’s ability to deal with emergency services.

A cursory look at county government budgets indicate that fire and emergency services have not been given priority.

Indeed, a comparison with what the county governments have been spending on foreign/local travel, hospitality and catering flies in the face of what they have allocated for fire fighting or ambulance services, installing fire stations or even providing fire hydrants in residential and commercial centres.

According to the Kenya National Fire Brigade Association, there are only 480 trained firefighters in the country.

This translates to one firefighter for every 83,333 Kenyans or one firefighter for every 16,000 households.

The association’s Secretary-General Francis Omollo Liech said in a report released last year that half of the trained firefighters —240 — were located in Nairobi and Mombasa with the rest of them scattered in the remaining counties.

Last year, the association released a report in which it provided a breakdown of the cost of putting up 50 single story fires stations— one in each of the counties except Nairobi and Mombasa, which would get two new fire stations.

According to the estimates, each county needs to spend at least Sh81 million to build, fully equip and staff one fire station or a total of Sh4 billion to make sure each county had at least one functional, fully equipped fire station.

The amount the county governments spent on vehicles for county executives was more than the 13 per cent which counties spent on the provision of health.

It was less than the 63 per cent of the total budget allocated to foreign and domestic travel in 2014/15.