Kalangala registers 8 fire outbreaks in five months

Cases of fire outbreaks have continued to rise in Kalangala District after leaders failed to enforce a ban on storage of petrol in homes at landing sites.

The ban, which was announced in March required all local leaders at various landing sites to identify a centralised place away from homesteads where they can keep petrol as one of measures to curb the rampant fire outbreaks. 

However, the leaders are still reluctant to enforce the ban, leading to rampant incidents in the past few months.

Between January 17 and June 12, a total of eight fire incidents have been recorded, leaving a couple burnt to near death and property worth millions of shillings destroyed at different landing sites.

Many of the fire outbreaks, according to police, were as a result of petrol, which islanders store inside their wooden houses.

Mr Gerald Kalyango, a councillor representing Mazinga Sub-county, said the leaders are teaming up to sensitise the community about fire prevention.

“We are also mobilising resources locally to procure a water pump to be used in case of any fire outbreak. When fire gutted our houses last Saturday night, it took us more than three hours to put it out because we were using bowls to fetch water directly from the lake,” he said in an interview last Sunday.

Mr John Bosco Lubega, the chairperson of Mwena Landing Site in Kalangala Town Council, which has suffered one of the recent fire incidents, said they have for a long time appealed to the district leadership to jointly enforce appropriate physical planning, but in vain.

“Many people here erect temporal wooden structures where they sleep and also use the same houses to store petrol in jerrycans. We need an operation by police to put all things right,” he said.

Mr Rajab Ssemakula, the district chairperson, said since Kalangala comprises 64 scattered inhabited islands, they would prefer amphibious fire boats, but the district cannot afford them unless they get government support.

“So, procurement of emergency water pumps for every landing site is something we can adopt,” he said.

He said many of the landing sites are in buffer zones where the National Environment Management Authority (Nema) prohibits permanent structures.

“However, at some landing sites like Mwena and Kitobo, we have started having approved building plans, which will promote the construction of better housing units,” he added.

Mr Stephen Kizza, the chairperson Kalangala Town Council, said all buildings at landing sites should be designed and constructed following guidance from local physical planning committees.

“The only challenge we have is that most of the land is owned by a few individuals who don’t want to sale or give lease offers to the sitting tenants,” he added.

Background

In October last year, the district council passed a resolution to start a physical planning programme and  sampled at five selected landing sites, however the exercise has since stalled due to unclear reasons.

Kalangala that comprises 64 islands, does not even have a single motorised fire engine.

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