Fire department kicks off series of drills

By Andreas Pavlou

The fire service on Wednesday began a series of drills to improve its operational capacity, spokesman Andreas Kettis said.

Kettis said Wednesday’s exercise focused a mock fire at the fuel storage area of Larnaca airport.

According to the scenario, at around 9am on February 9, and under extreme weather conditions, lightning struck the tank of the oil facilities (LAFS – Larnaca Aviation Fuelling System Ltd) at the airport.

Staff at the facility immediately implemented the emergency action plan by activating extinguishing and cooling systems inbuilt into the tank such as foam sprinklers.

Fire engines from the airport station along with Larnaca fire crews eventually extinguished the fire.

Afterwards, Kettis said the service was carrying out a series of drills “to maintain and if possible, to improve its operational readiness”.

“This exercise is done essentially to test the action plans, if they need to be upgraded, to have a contact of the facilities with the staff of the Fire Service and to have better coordination,” he added.

“The exercise is done to test both the autonomous firefighting systems that exist on the premises, as well as other equipment for firefighting purposes and to test the motorised and other equipment available to the fire department for such purposes.”