An unnecessary expense of 350 thousand 500 thousand dollars per outing, has been made by the Meritorious Fire Department of the Republic of Panama (BCBRP), from January to July of the current year, mobilizing its personnel and firefighting vehicles to attend 340 calls of emergencies that turned out to be a false alarm.
According to a BCBRP report, the first quarter of the year is the one that registers the highest number of false alarms, with 244 cases, broken down as follows: January (68), February (97) and March (79).
Although this figure represents 1.74% of the 19,431 emergencies responded to on July 31, Lieutenant Andrés Espinosa, head of the Radio Section, pointed out that these carry “a high economic cost” and the possible neglect of a real emergency, where Lives and property would be at risk.
The authorities broke down that the mobilization or departure of a BCBRP operational team to attend an emergency implies the mobilization of vehicles that have prices that range between 350,000 to 500,000 dollars, ambulances, added to the cost of fuel and the deployment of human resources , which are resources that must be available for a real emergency.
The most frequent false alarms, according to records, are from fires and car accidents.
Behavior of emergencies. At the end of the month of July, the statistics of emergencies attended maintain the same pattern of the previous months. To date, there have been 19,431 responses to situations throughout the country, which represents a daily average of 91 emergencies.
The aforementioned statistical report reveals that the presence of Africanized bees continues to be the incidence most attended by Panamanian firefighters, with a total of 7,543 exits; followed by grass fires (2,890) and care for injured people (2,597).
When comparing the figures month by month, the report shows that March is the month with the highest number of emergencies attended, with 4,288 exits, while in the month of July the lowest number was recorded with 2,099.
