From
putting out blazes, catching snakes and stray animals, and responding to
disasters, the SBMA Fire Department has now switched mostly to fighting an
unusual enemy that could not be seen: Covid-19.
While
fighting with sprayers carried on backpacks to disinfect facilities had not
diminished the team’s fire suppression capacity, it too had not reduced the
dangers these frontline workers face every day on the job.
The
new mission is all part of a contingency plan that was hatched when the cruise
ship World Dream with close to 800
tourists from China was stopped from docking in Subic last January when the new
coronavirus began spreading worldwide, said SBMA fire chief Ranny Magno.
“We
needed to be proactive; it’s the way risk managers should think, and that is embedded
in the SBMA culture,” Magno said. “So we started preparation and planning.”
The
preparation involved training on disinfection and decontamination procedures,
orientation on the new coronavirus, and the actual purchase of hazardous
materials (HAZMAT) suits, personal protective equipment (PPEs), and three
backpack sprayers.
For
disinfectant and decontaminant solutions, Magno said the Subic firefighters used
chlorine granules (calcium hypochlorite) mixed with clean water, an ingenuity they
practiced here months before the Department of Health (DOH) officially endorsed
chlorine solution as effective against Covid-19.
These
came in handy when SBMA Chairman and Administrator Wilma T. Eisma ordered the disinfection
of all SBMA offices, especially those frequented by clients, in order to ensure
health and safety in the Freeport while keeping the local economy running.
SBMA’s
disinfection program began on March 14, two days before the declaration of the
Luzon-wide enhanced community quarantine (ECQ), and the first to be sanitized
was the Pass and ID office where there were always some queues for customers.
Soon,
some stakeholders got involved and chipped in: two hotels with huge swimming
pools donated chlorine granules from their stocks. A Filipino who retired from
the US Marine gave two units of backpack sprayers.
Since
then and until June 30, the SBMA Fire Department had decontaminated a total of
110 buildings and offices, including 34 SBMA facilities.
At
the same time, the Fire Prevention Division of the SBMA Fire Department
switched from its usual lecture on fire control and instead performed
orientation and inspection of Covid-19 health protocols in in locator companies
that were allowed to operate during the quarantine.
Under
this task, the fire team managed to inspect the implementation of safety protocols,
including measures for social distancing, in a total of 936 companies from May
to August.
“One
thing we learned during this pandemic was that every step must be precise;
there’s no margin for error because lives are at stake here,” Magno said. “It
is a hard task for us because we are all exposed to the virus.”
Magno
noted that one SBMA fireman had recently been infected after decontamination of
the Subic container terminal where 45 workers had tested positive of Covid-19. He said the firefighter, who remains
asymptomatic, has been quarantined at an SBMA isolation facility and is doing
well.
“We
know the risks of our job. We understand that we could be infected anytime. But
we have to do our job to protect our locators and stakeholders,” Magno said.
Right
now, as the SBMA management considers giving the disinfection job to its
maintenance unit, the tactical objective of the Fire Department would be to
train locator-companies on the proper procedures for disinfection.
“To
be safe, we have to be resilient by seeing to it that our area is free from
virus. But each and every one of us—the stakeholders— should be resilient so
that the whole community could be resilient,” Magno added. (MPD-SBMA)
PHOTO:
Using sprayers and fire nozzles, SBMA firemen disinfect facilities in the Subic
Bay Freeport to prevent the spread of the Covid-19 virus
