Smoke detector alarms installed at fire-prone informal settlement

Residents of Plastic View, an informal settlement that has experienced devastating fires, have received 500 smoke detector alarms.

The City of Tshwane's emergency services department worked with the fire services directorate of the Gauteng department of cooperative governance and traditional affairs on the installations on Friday. The devices were sponsored by an insurer.

Emergency services department spokesperson Charles Mabaso said about 113 firefighting students from the City's emergency services department training academy and their instructors, including disaster risk management officials, worked together to install detectors in predetermined households, businesses and early childhood development centres in the informal settlement.

He said officials took time to orientate and educate the beneficiaries on how to escape their dwellings if the detector is activated, and how to reset the detector if the fire is contained and extinguished in its incipient stages. In case of fire, they were advised to immediately call emergency services by dialling the toll-free 107 emergency number.

In the most recent fire in November, about 250 people were left homeless after a blaze swept through the informal settlement in Pretoria East.

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