More Bomba stations proposed for rural districts to fight longhouse fires

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Penguang answering questions during the State Legislative Assembly meeting yesterday.

KUCHING: The Sarawak government has proposed the construction of new fire stations near rural settlements due to the number of longhouse fires in the state every year.

Local Government and Housing Assistant Minister Dr Penguang Manggil told the State Legislative Assembly yesterday that among the proposed locations for the stations are Batu Niah, Beluru, Lapok, Long Lama and Tebedu.

“Acknowledging the gravity of the problem of longhouse fires, the Sarawak government through the Fire and Rescue Department (Bomba) has proposed to build a number of fire and rescue stations in rural towns,” he said in a reply to Martin Ben (GPS-Kedup), without giving details as to when the projects were expected to be implemented and how much they cost.

Penguang informed that there were five longhouse fires from January to April this year; while for the whole of last year and 2017, there were 24 and 26 respectively. Touching on Tebedu specifically, Penguang said Bomba was resubmitting a proposal to build a fire station under the 12th Malaysia Plan after it was rejected earlier by the federal government.

He said the state government had approved the construction of a category ‘D’ fire station at Lot 298, Block 8 of the Kayan Land District.

A category D Bomba station, costing RM3.5 million, consists of 10 full time Bomba officers and 15 voluntary fire department officers, besides being equipped with one unit of fire rescue tender, two units of utility vehicle and one unit of rescue boat.

Penguang also made an appeal to the federal Housing and Local Government Ministry to design fire stations that take into account the conditions in the vast and sparsely populated Sarawak.

He asked what had become of the category ‘E’ stations which were proposed for Sarawak as there had been no progress.

Federal Housing and Local Government Minister Zuraida Kamaruddin had said in May this year that the category ‘E’ stations, which would be manned by a Bomba auxiliary officer and volunteers, would be set up in remote areas of Sabah and Sarawak.