The government of Kenya is set to officially open the Kangundo Road fire station in November. Nairobi County Disaster Management and Coordination chief officer, Ann Mwenda confirmed the report and said that final touches were being put on the fire station in preparation for its formal launch.
Construction of the fire station the third of such facilities in Nairobi, began last year. The facility aims at boosting the county government’s emergency response in Eastlands area. According to Ann Mwenda the fire station will have more than 10 fire engines to boost its performance.
Kangundo Road fire station
The station will also be equipped with fire engines, ambulances, a borehole for water supply and adequate personnel to run disaster and emergency operations. Construction of the project is being financed by the World Bank.
Ms Mwenda pointed out that the upgrading of Kangundo Road to a dual carriageway will boost access to the fire station “With the upgrading of Outering Rod and now Kangundo Road, the fire engines will have no challenges of traffic to and from the station,” Mwenda said.
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Currently, Nairobi County has only two functional fire stations; Khoja fire station along Tom Mboya Street in the Central Business District and another one at Industrial Area. The two were built before Kenya got independence in 1963.
The county government also plans to put up at least one fire station in all the 17 constituencies of Nairobi and recruit more firefighters to serve the additional fire stations.
“Currently the fire department has less than 150 fire fighters and we want to increase their numbers by recruiting 1, 200 staff, including fire fighters and city inspectorates. At the moment Nairobi has only 120 trained fire fighters, with 11 set to retire at the end of the year and 13 in 2020 ,” said Ms Mwenda.
