The Johannesburg Emergency Services Management Services (EMS) has called on residents to be careful during extreme cold conditions when there are rolling blackouts.
It says when temperatures drop, the country’s informal human settlements are susceptible to fires that usually leave a trail of damage and sometimes even claim lives.
The City of Johannesburg’s EMS Spokesperson, Robert Mulaudzi says residents should not leave heating devices unattended to prevent fire incidents.
“We are seeing an increase in terms of the number of fire incidents especially in our informal residents you know during this time of the year we normally respond to fires in our formal settlements but due to the fact that there’s load shedding appliances most of the time are left unattended and also we are seeing that most of our residents in unformal residential areas are forced to use other heating devices like candles which makes them vulnerable to fire incidents and when appliances are left unattended, we end up having fire incidents. These are things we see now that we have cold weather conditions added with load shedding, we are seeing an increase in the number of incidents we have to respond to,” says Mulaudzi.
Video | SA Weather: Monday 23 May 2022
