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After 8 months of construction, Nairobi Metropolitan Services will officially open Gigiri Fire station on Friday.
The project, which was undertaken by NMS in partnership with Nairobi County Government and Scorpion Properties Limited was launched on November 4, 2022.
The company donated half an acre of land for the station to be set up.
Nairobi has been relying on the Koja fire station on Tom Mboya Street which was built in 1907 and another at Industrial Area built-in 1957.
Through the county-funded projects, World Bank has constructed two fire stations.
They are Kangundo Road and Waithaka which were completed last year.
With the infrastructural development in Nairobi, traffic snarl-ups have not spared fire engines.
However, with an additional fire station, response to fire incidents will be rapid.
City Hall had announced that it has already recruited 300 firefighters who will be deployed at the recently built fire stations.
A September 2019 report from City Hall revealed that Nairobi had only 120 trained firefighters.
11 retired at the end of that year followed by another 13 last year.
Fire engines get their water supply from the 4,044 hydrants in Nairobi.
Most of the hydrants were damaged when the Thika Superhighway was being constructed.
However, in 2018 it was reported that only 103 out of the 4044 hydrants were functional.
The functioning hydrants are located at Globe roundabout, Runda, Kijabe Street, Safari Park, one at James Gichuru and three at Industrial Area.
World Bank is constructing boreholes along Enterprise Road, Kangundo Road, Tom Mboya street, Waithaka and Dagoretti to assist in places where the hydrants have dried up.
A total of 892 families have been victims of mysterious fires recorded from January 2021 to May 18, 2022, in Nairobi county.
This is according to data from the Tushinde Children’s Trust report on fires in Mathare and Kiambiu informal settlements.
The report reveals that the two slums experienced fire incidents seven out of 12 months last year with 502 families affected.
This year 390 families have been directly affected by fire cases which occurred in both slums, from January until May 18, 2022.
Nairobi suffers frequent mysterious fires, especially in the slums and markets, destroying property worth millions of shillings.
Sometimes the fires lead to injury or death.
The report further said fire is one of the most prevalent risks faced by inhabitants of informal settlements, with Mathare having monthly incidents that are often under-publicised. BY THE STAR