Our fire fighting course has been developed by South Africans, for South Africans. We don’t simply take a generalist approach to fire prevention and suppression. Rather, we look at our country’s unique landscape and risks, developing a fire fighting approach uniquely suited to South Africa. This includes matters of compliance, as our course aligns with South African laws and regulations around fire safety.
Understanding South Africa’s Unique Fire Risk Landscape
South Africa presents us with a whole host of regionally specific fire risks that we all need to be aware of. On a more ecological level, we have to contend with veldfire-prone regions around the Western Cape, Eastern Cape and Mpumalanga, where the indigenous flora is highly susceptible to burns during hot, dry summers. The human aspect of our fire risks largely revolves around a significant presence of high-density informal settlements where open-flame cooking and paraffin heaters are commonplace.
Moreover, the presence of load-shedding entails frequent electrical surges, which are known as frequent fire starters. Our biggest metropolitan hubs like Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban are the area’s most susceptible to electric or chemical fires, which means that local authorities tend to be quite strict about matters of fire compliance.
Why EMCARE’s Fire Fighting Course Is Essential In The South African Context
The EMCARE Fire Fighting Course is specifically tailored to the South African market and environment. We acknowledge our unique risk landscape and pay particular attention to the causes behind fires in South Africa, and our course content reflects this. Trainees will learn how common South African phenomena such as illegal wiring, misused generators, flammable industrial materials, gas cylinders and dry brush contribute to fires, the different nature of those fires and how they’re combated.
We’re able to speak with such authority on the matter because our trainers are industry experts with longstanding experience in South Africa’s emergency response industry, able to recount firsthand how to handle real-world fire scenarios in South Africa. Moreover, we’ve designed our course to meet local OHS Act requirements and fire standards, ensuring compliance with local laws and regulations.
Core Skills Taught In Our Fire Fighting Course With South African Workplaces In Mind
Some of the South African entities most aware of fire risk are businesses. In a tumultuous economy with few support nets, devastating physical hazards such as fires are incredibly dangerous to local businesses, especially small ones. These businesses also tend to operate around common fire hazards such as backup power systems, multi-plugs, flammable material and risky warehouse storage.
To keep a South African business safe against the ravages of fire, a fire fighting course needs to teach trainees how to assess these risks and handle chemical and electrical fires. A big part of protecting a business entails formulating effective evacuation plans. To do so, trainees need to be familiar with South African buildings, including big office blocks, factories and shopping malls, so that they can develop tailored evacuation plans.
Hands-On Training Using Equipment Standard In South Africa
The EMCARE fire fighting course ensures that none of its trainees are left without a solid grasp of fire suppression tools. SABS (The South African Bureau of Standards) has approved a range of extinguishers, fire blankets, hose reels and hydrants for fire fighters to use. Our course involves a strong practical element in which students learn how to physically handle these tools and use them to maximum effect. This kind of training will generally take place within a simulated fire scenario based upon local environments, such as veldfires, fuel-storage fires or transformer fires.
Moreover, we try to introduce our trainees to other extraneous factors that real emergency crews in South Africa are likely to face on the job. These include strong winds, fast-burning structures, dense buildings and mixed-material burns.
South African Compliance, Legal Responsibilities And Insurance Requirements
Every country has a unique legislature in place regarding fire safety compliance. For any fire fighting course to be useful in South Africa, it needs to be in line with these laws. That’s why here at EMCARE, we are very clear about the OHS Act obligations for any South African employers, providing the right kind of training and records to meet these requirements. On top of this, we ensure that our teachings are in line with SANS regulations that determine how fire safety equipment, such as extinguishers, fire alarms and fire doors ought to be installed and maintained. This all becomes doubly important when one factors in the matter of insurance, as companies are becoming increasingly strict about proof of a staff member’s fire fighting ability to validate any claims made by a business.
Why South African Businesses Trust The EMCARE Fire Fighting Course
EMCARE is a longstanding South African provider of emergency service training, with our trainees filtering out across the nation to serve key industries such as manufacturing, mining, retail, hospitality, logistics, education, agriculture and more. Our presence spans the whole of South Africa, from Cape Town to Polokwane, making our training courses accessible to virtually anyone in South Africa.
Through us, South African businesses of every kind have been able to improve their compliance for increasingly strict South African audits, inspections and industry-specific regulations. Not only has this allowed businesses to flourish, but it’s also provided South Africa with a more robust safety culture that sees fewer uncontrolled fires run rampant. In this sense, the EMCARE fire fighting course provides massive benefits to not only trainees and employers, but also our society at large.
In conclusion, our fighting course has been specifically adapted to the South African environment. We are confronted with unique risks associated with both our human and natural environments, including power surges, densely populated informal settlements, dry summers and more.
Our fire fighting training is designed to meet these challenges head-on, using tailored approaches to prevent and combat fires of every kind. Moreover, we build our course around regional laws and regulations on fire safety to ensure compliance at all times. Due to these reasons and more, South African businesses value EMCARE as a partner.
