FIREFIGHTING ON ALL FRONTS

MUMBAI FIRE BRIGADE PRABHAT RAHANGDALE, 55 CHIEF FIRE OFFICER. COVID DEED The brigade’s jawans have sanitised a 17,000 km size area in the city

- Kiran D. Tare

Prabhat Rahangdale, chief fire officer of the Mumbai Fire Brigade (MFB), was mentally prepared when the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) asked him in March to take up a mammoth task. Mumbai had just registered its first COVID-19 positive case and the BMC wanted to sanitise the nooks and corners of the city. The MFB has 2,700 personnel; 160 of them were chosen to participate in the sanitisation work. The fire brigade had proved its mettle in the past, rescuing people in calamities like the floods in July 2005 and the terror attacks on November 26, 2008. But it was the first time in its 133-year history (it was formed on April 1, 1887) that it had been roped in for a sanitising mission, and that too on this scale.

The MFB was immediately called in after Mumbai registered its first COVID-19 death on March 23. The patient had been admitted to the P.D. Hinduja Hospital in Mahim. The MFB personnel took control of the hospital premises and sanitised it in one day, allowing it to reopen in a couple of days. That significantly boosted the MFB’s confidence.