The Chief Fire Officer of the City of Cape Town Ian Schnetler says internal fire fighting is the best method to combat a structural fire such as the one that broke out in Parliament’s National Assembly building.
Responding to questions from the media outside Parliament, Schnetler says water-bombing the building would not have served any purpose.
Water bombing is often applied to tackle veld fires that are hard to extinguish. Firefighters could only extinguish a flare-up of the fire on the roof of the building that broke out on Monday around midnight.
Schnetler explains why they did not use water bombs.
“On the structural fire when the request came through for aerial support the roof was still intact, so if you going to water-bomb a roof that was still intact, it is going to serve absolutely no purpose. Internal fire fighting is the best method for that, if the roof had vented and they still wanted to use the water bombing, there are crews inside, there crews outside. That is very dangerous for a structural fire.”
Gallery of Parliament fire:
Some of the pictures captured by SABC News reporter Mercedes Besent
