National Fire Authority (NFA) received much needed Breathing Apparatus from the Fortitude Valley Rotary Club of Brisbane, Australia today at the NFA Head Quarters in Suva.
Fortitude Valley Rotary Club donated the equipment which included Breathing Apparatus units complete with masks and oxygen cylinders as well as spare masks and cylinders for NFA's fire-fighters.
Twenty sets of breathing apparatus, twenty spare masks and forty cylinders were donated by the Fortitude Valley Rotary Club.
NFA CEO John O’Connor thanked Fortitude Valley Rotary Club for their timely donation of the equipment.
“The equipment will greatly assist NFA in its fire-fighting operations because equipment is very important for effective aggressive fire-fighting,” Mr O’Connor said.
He said the equipment which includes the breathing apparatus and cylinders will be dispatched to all the fire stations to boost fire-fighting capability in all our stations.
“These are very specialized equipment which are very critical for fire-fighting as it will prevent our fire-fighters from the high risk of suffocation as a result of excessive exposure to chemical fumes and smoke during major fire-fighting and rescue operations,” Mr O’Connor said.
The equipment would have otherwise cost NFA more than $50,000.
The CEO said the donation would not have been possible without the efforts of Mr Phillip Pickersgill, a member of the Fortitude Valley Rotary Club and Managing Director of Banksia Scientific Company of Brisbane, Australia.
"He saw the need and initiated the donation of the equipment to NFA," Mr O'Connor said.
Mr Pickersgill said they were happy to assist NFA with such specialized equipment because of the limited Breathing Apparatus units that NFA has.
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