Two hundred and seventy two (272) cases of fire incidents were reported in Oyo State in the last nine months.
Chairman, Oyo State Fire Service, Hon Maroof Akinwande, made this disclosure while speaking with DAILY POST at the weekend.
In an exclusive interview, Akinwande noted that those cases were recorded between January and September 2025.
He said that the agency had upgraded its infrastructure so as to respond to emergencies.
According to him, the traditional belief of people was that fire incidents occur only during dry seasons, but the pattern had changed.
“And I want to appreciate the media who are reporting it, they are reporting these cases and it is going a long way to raise people’s consciousness about their safety.
“And more importantly is that the people do not care to have fire extinguishers, people don’t care to have them.
“When it occurs, the only alternative is to call the fire service. I want to appeal to the people to be safely conscious.
“Safely does not start the day it occurs. It starts from the first day of construction of houses, industries. Human activities have increased.
“Let me tell you that the traditional belief of people is that we do have fire incidents during dry seasons, but the pattern has changed nowadays.
“We have had a lot of fire outbreaks in the last nine months even during the rainy season. The figure is very enormous.
“If these are happening during the rainy season, we should be more prepared for the dry season. We recorded 39 in January, 35 in February, 33 in March, 32 in April, 35 in May, 27 in June, 23 in July, 21 in August and 27 in September.
“We have upgraded our infrastructure, nobody can have it all. But I can say that we are 80 per cent prepared.
“Why we are reporting cases of fire incidents is because the fire service is working. I want to say that in the last nine months, there has been no fire incident that we did not attend to. We attended to all the fire incidents reported to us.
“People should take care of their safety. People should employ preventive measures. Use the right appliances. Ensure proper disposal of wastes”.
