QUEZON City Mayor Herbert Bautista is planning to acquire a P50-million modern ladder fire truck to beef up the capability of the local Bureau of Fire Protection.
City administrator Aldrin Cuña disclosed Bautista’s plan to strengthen the BFP’s capability to fight fires and conduct rescues in high-rise buildings.
“We continue the support to the Bureau of Fire Protection-Quezon City. Hopefully, we are considering the procurement of a new Rosenbauer ladder fire truck in 2018,” Bautista said.
“I am looking at it from the perspective of development because of the numerous constructions that are going on, and the higher the buildings get, the more difficult it is to fire fight. We need to have more ladders and there is only one here in Quezon City that is owned by the city government,” the mayor added.
Bautista is studying if the procurement can be funded through the city’s disaster risk reduction and management fund.
The city’s fire station has one ladder truck that is capable of reach a nine-story building only. The Pierce Dash 100 aerial ladder truck was acquired by the city government for P52 million in 2008.
The BFP has exclusively used this ladder truck in its promotional campaigns, and was the bureau’s most modern fire truck until the arrival in 2015 of several Rosenbauer fire trucks from Austria.
According to Cuña, the city government bankrolls the repairs and maintenance of the Pierce Dash 100 truck at about P2.7 million a year.
“That is too expensive to maintain, but nonetheless, we (still have to) maintain it,” he said.
Meanwhile, Quezon City firefighters are set to attend a three-day training program by SFDHQ and Citynet in the use and operation of donated fire engines.
Cuña also mentioned the approved construction of a fire station inside the compound of the University of the Philippines-Diliman.