Odisha firefighters to get advanced protected gear

BHUBANESWAR: Odisha fire service has decided to purchase an adequate number of fire entry suits to enable firefighters to walk into the blaze and carry out rescue operations. Currently, only around 20 fireproof suits are available with only a handful of stations.

“We had last year purchased a few fire entry suits. This year we are going to procure the advanced protective gear in large numbers. An exact number of suits required will be finalized soon. The suit’s material will protect the wearer from heat and burn. The aluminized gear is designed for the most extreme high-temperature applications,” DGP (fire service, home guards and civil defence) Bijay Kumar Sharma told TOI on the sidelines of a workshop for his department’s senior personnel here on Wednesday.


Sources said the firefighters have so far not felt the need of using the existing suits as no emergency situation, where they had to walk into the blaze to rescue trapped victims, arose anywhere in the state. Fire officials said they need more such suits so that the equipment can be stored in all the 336 fire stations to meet any exigency. Currently, the fire officials wear a normal uniform to douse the fire from quite a distance and a resistive suit to go near the blaze. The fire officials also plan to purchase advanced sprinklers to extinguish the fire.

At the workshop, a number of senior fire officers from different districts were sensitized on effective handling of mishaps, involving transportation of hazardous materials, including LPG cylinders, and leakage of toxic gas. "Our personnel, who have set a role model for other states and joined rescue operations in other states, need to hone their skills to respond to such mishaps. In November 2017, some firefighters fell sick while trying to contain leakage of chlorine gas on the campus of SCB medical college and hospital in Cuttack," Sharma said.