Questions/Answers

Nkangala District Municipality has got six fire stations in its area of jurisdiction. Some of this fire stations are directly managed by local municipalities. It has however been noticed by NDM that infrastracture of some of this fire station is old and no longer serve the purpose it supposeed to serve. As a results the district embarked on a process of capacitating this stations by continuously procuring new infrastracture such as fire engines, response vehicles, hazmat response vehicles and building new fire stations where there is a need for such facility. This initiative has improved the response capacity to fire & rescue incidents within the district municipality, as a results benefiting the community and some being the poor and rural citizens who never had access to such services before.

i) To improve the fire and rescue services infrastracture within the district. ii) To ensure access of emergency services by the rural citizens especially those vulnerable to veld fires. iii) To ensure that the district municipality complies with the relevant fire and rescue services legislation in terms of provide safe and reliable infrastracture for fire fighting purposes.

i) Capacitating local fire stations ensures that local citizens in the vicinity of those stations are able to access quick response to incidents of fire and other rescue incidents occuring in their villages. ii) Some of this facilities service rural communities which are in the main very poor and therefore cannot afford to pay for such services for example the Thembisile and Dr JS Moroka fire stations are surrounded by poor villages without lots of facilities but at the same time the areas are highly prone to Veld fires and road accidents. iii) In some of this communities they previously did not have a fire station however the district started a project to build such infrastracture to this area to ensure all citizens of the municipality have equal access to such essential services. iv) Poor communities who previously had no knowledge of the role and responsibilities of the fire services, they are now starting to understand and report all fire related incidents.

i) Procurement of fire engines ensures that the respective stations are able respond effeciently to fire & rescue incidents throughout the district without compromising the safety of emergency personnel. ii) Building fire stations especially the recently opened Thembisile and Dr JS Moroka Fire station brought the service closer to rural communities abd by that shortening the response times during emergences, and ensuring effective public education and awareness campaign to the nearby communities. iii) Some of the rescue tools procured has strongly improved the performance of teams during serious road accidents, thereby saving lives that without such equipments would have been lost.

i) It has brought the service closer to people and resulted in effective public education and awareness in those communities. ii) Created lots of Job oipportunities to local communities, during opening of this facilities qualified local citizens were employed as fire fighters; others were recruited as learners and then trained and appointed immediately after they have qualified. one of this stations is managed by a female fire chief and a number of female officers were employed as well as local youth.

i) It has created employment opportunities ii) a number of female officers and youth were employed from local communities

In the past or in some parts of the country fire & rescue services is only available in Cities or towns which render it ineffective to fighting veld and forest fires and leave rural or poor communities exposed to the risk of fire whereby they can easily lose their live stock and property. This initiative therefore seeks to promote access to this essential service and also ensure that those fire and rescue stations are fully equipped.

It is original but further supported by the country legislations. Some institutions only focus on buiding infrastracture on a service where they are directly responsible but as a district we decided to establish infrastracture in all corners of the municipality to ensure that majority of citizens get access to this kind of service.

Financial resources: the district had to procure using its limited budget but still managed to make a huge difference within a short period of time. Human: huma resources with skills to facitate the procurement and building of this infrastracture within the municipality's Social Services and Technical Services departments.

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It is adaptable especially within South Africa because we are using the same principles and local government legislations; however in other countries it will depend on the specific countrys' government system setup. The initiative itself it adaptable.

It is sustainable: financial backing to cover employment and equipment service costs is provided by the municipality. However the municipality gets a return on its investment through community satisfaction by the service provided by these equipments or infrastracture.

the building only needs some repairs and maintanance but it has long life span. the equipments durability depends on usage, things like rescue tools (jaws of life) some have a life time guarantee depending on the make, and response vehicles also depends on usage and roads conditions. therefore durability depends on a number of factors namely: road conditions where vehicle are used, servicing of those equipments in time, skills of the user to use the equipments etc. In normal conditions the equipments are expected to last more five years.

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A number of stakeholders were engaged as follows: i) Civil Society: through community outreach meetings where the Executive Mayor discuss all projects with the community before submitting for budget and again give a feedback on progress of those projects. ii) Fire stations: the district further engages with the local stations to check their list of required resources or infrastracture as primary users of these equipments.

i) Fire fighting equipments are too expensive and requires a huge budget to address the shortage in the service. ii) As the risk of climate change becomes a reality, hazards like drought becomes common increasing the chances of fire or veld fires in the district. therefore all our stations needs to be further equipped with more offroad vehicles to be able educate and assist the farming community about fire prevention strategies.