Firemen making sure the fire has been totally put out.
The aftermath of the industrial fire at Tapah Road.
SIBU: Both Sibu Water Board and Sibu Fire Brigade (Bomba) explained yesterday that the low water pressure was to be blamed for the heavy loss of properties in the pre-dawn industrial fire at Tapah Road on Tuesday.
The fire, one of the biggest in Sarawak this year, resulted in over RM10 million in property losses.
This prompted the owners to bring their complaints to the press and SUPP leaders, who promptly called on the authorities to address the problem to ensure efficient fire fighting in the future.
Sibu Water Board general manager Daniel Wong agreed it was a matter of grave concern, saying “therefore there has been an understanding among Sibu Resident, Sibu Water Board and Sibu Fire Brigade to coordinate on this water pressure problem.
“According to this understanding, the firemen will inform us whenever there is a fire so that our technician will rush to the fire scene with them. Our role is to monitor the water pressure, and if it is too low, we shall increase it.”
Wong confirmed his technician was at the fire scene at Tapah Road that morning to access the situation.
He said what the water board found was “five nozzles of the firemen were fixed to one fire hydrant, and definitely, pressure from one hydrant supplying water to five nozzles will be low.”
He said the technician then worked on increasing the water pressure “and in the end, the water pressure was increased”.
Sibu Bomba chief Abdul Mutalib, when contacted, confirmed this.
However, he said they had to fix five nozzles to one hydrant “because this was a major fire we were fighting; we needed many nozzles.”
Meanwhile, Wong said there was no water pressure problem at Tapah Road.
He said the water pressure was usually fixed at a normal level sufficient for use by consumers.
“We cannot fix the pressure higher than that because that will damage the pipes, cause pipe leakages and other problem.
Meanwhile, SUPP Bukit Assek branch chairman Chieng Buong Toon confirmed he had received numerous complaints from the owners of the industrial units on the low water pressure, which he said was a serious problem that should be promptly rectified.
He said he learned from the firemen that that they had to draw water from a stream because the low water pressure.
“What if there is no stream? The losses would have been heavier if the firemen could not prevent the fire spread.”