The Lagos State Fire and Rescue Service became operative on 31st August 1972 under an Expatriate Chief Officer Sir Allan Flemming as the head along with a 3-man crew and a mandate to further protect lives and property within the Lagos Metropolis and its noted for her efficiency and vibrancy in the discharge of her responsibilities.
It’s worthy of note that, since the invasion of petro-dollars in Nigeria, there has been massive, but haphazardly coordinated expansion in economic activities across the country. This development has made fire incidents a major source of danger to public safety and property.
In fact, recurring fire incidents at petrol loading bays, tank farms, pipelines and other similar sources are good examples of such danger. Again, most of the poorly developed market clusters across the country annually go up in flames; while fire at multi-storey buildings, petro-chemical industries and crash sites always constitute embarrassments to outdated fire equipment.
A critical look at the neglect of the Fire Service by federal, state and local governments in Nigeria is a source for concern. Indeed, most of the vehicles at the fire stations are at the state of complete disrepair.
But, Lagos State as always, is standing out among its contemporaries in Nigeria by setting the pace in the area of infrastructure. The recent arrangement between the state and F&M ACME to reconstruct and face-lift the fire rescue service headquarters at Alausa under the supervision of the Lagos State Infrastructure Asset Management Agency (LASIAMA) is a pointer to that.
The project executor F&M ACME Limited, a subsidiary of BrookHeritage Holdings Limited, is one of the fastest growing indigenous construction and real estate firm. It completed the project which was commissioned on 26th October 2022.
At the commissioning, the Executive Governor of Lagos State, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu expressed his delight at the excellence of execution of the project. He said, I was personally impressed yesterday when I saw the pictures of the completion. I want to thank our contractor, Mr Femi Olukotun for this great edifice.
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Mr. Governor said further, “We have 4 new fire stations that were commissioned today. And this is the headquarters. This shows the level of our preparedness to combat emergency and fire disaster; to save lives and properties of Lagosians. For the first time in the history of this state, we will see some new sophisticated equipment to be handed over for use by Lagos State. We want to compete with global citizens in the world. It is indeed what we meant by wanting to be a 21st century state. And I’m happy we are responding to and fulfilling what a mega city should look like.
Also speaking on this development, the Group Chief Executive Officer of BrookHeritage Holdings Limited, Femi Olukotun said the aim of the project is to renovate existing offices as well as design and build a new standard and befitting administrative office structure to serve as the headquarters of the Lagos State Fire and Rescue Service.
“As a contractor, we are very proud to be part of this laudable achievement of Mr Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, especially in relation to various fire stations that were upgraded, newly built and in particular the headquarters of the Lagos State Fire & Rescue Service in which our company reconstructed. It is quite a very encouraging opportunity for us and we have decided to take up this job very diligently and constructed a well befitting fire service headquarters for Lagos State. As it has been mentioned earlier by the supervising agency in charge, LASIAMA, it was formerly a 20-room building but we have been able to reconstruct and ensure that it is now enlarged and can accommodate over 60 offices, including the gym, the sick bay, the officers mess, two different section of conference rooms, executive conference room and general conference room; we have the communication room, we have a standard slide for emergency response etc. The building was constructed with the best of sophisticated equipment and materials that can actually stand the test of time and the aesthetics is what we deliberately work on to ensure that we deliver a project that we can be proud of and indeed we are very proud of this project. And with the new redesigning and reconstruction, you can see that the headquarter is now a complete emergency route in which all visitors to the Lagos State Fire and Rescue Service Headquarter will now have a different entry and exit route which does not interfere with emergency responder that are on standby. These are the new redevelopment that have been put into this particular project, especially at the headquarters.
“We are proud once again to be part of this laudable project; we are also very humbled by series of goodwill messages that we have received in respect of this project and we want to assure the general public that we, as a construction firm will continue to do our best to ensure that we give out quality services at every opportunity that we have to serve.
“I appreciate Mr Governor once again and I wish him well in his future endeavours.”