The five Bomba volunteer teams competing at the district Fire and Rescue Department station yesterday.
TAWAU: Due to the vastness of Sabah, the existence of fire and rescue volunteers and community is very important in fighting fire and prevention.
Sabah Fire and Rescue Department director Kamarulzaman Malik Abdullah said volunteers are stationed in areas far from the fire department station.
With their existence they can help in response time and most important the community gets help earlier, he said after the Bomba Volunteers Convention at the station here yesterday.
He said currently, Sabah has 300 teams with more than 2,000 members and another team is called Bomba community which have been created at each parliamentary constituency with a total of 5,000 members.
The concept of Bomba community, he said is more towards the local community which is more on safety campaign such as how to use fire extinguisher, fighting fire at an early stage and prevention.
He said Bomba volunteers are full-time firefighters. Although only volunteers, they will rescue and fight fires before the arrival of firemen.
He added the department cannot cope due to Sabah’s very big area and distance, thus volunteers are very important to ensure safety.
Meanwhile, on the Bomba Volunteers Convention for Tawau zone level, he said two events were contested to select teams to represent Sabah at the national level convention.
Apart from that the main objective of the convention is to give space to volunteer firefighters to share knowledge and compete in a healthy manner for them to train and test their efficiency in carrying out rescue and putting out fires, he said.