Jakarta – The Jakarta Fire and Rescue Agency's acting head, Subejo, has said the capital needs more fire stations, considering the significant number of fires in the capital.
The agency recorded that last month alone, there were 159 fires in the capital. The number is relatively high compared to May, which recorded 137 cases, while April saw 122 cases and 133 in March.
As of July 7, the agency recorded 34 fires for the month. In total, it recorded 857 fires in the capital this year.
Subejo said with the lack of fire stations, it took longer for firefighters to get to the locations of fires.
"In terms of quality, our existing posts are generally better than fire stations in other regions. However, there aren't enough of them. We still have several subdistricts with only one fire station," said Subejo on Wednesday.
According to Subejo, there should ideally be one fire station in every subdistrict. Out of Jakarta's 267 subdistricts, only 110 have fire stations.
"We still haven't reached the ideal number. With more fire stations in subdistricts, people can rely on us to reach them faster to put out fires and also to help them in other emergencies."
Subejo said fire stations were not being constructed because of a lack of land in the city. He said the fire agency was planning to utilize the city administration's unused buildings to house stations.
"If there are regional administration buildings that are no longer being used, we're going to propose if we can transform them into fire stations. If constructing a station is not feasible, then we could also just park our trucks there or in other locations, such as city parks or underpasses. [bry]