AP to Procure Drones, Robots to Fight Fire in High-Rise Buildings, Pharma Firms
The government has launched 65 vehicles including 25 water tenders and 40 quick response vehicles in April.
Vijayawada:The Andhra Pradesh government would procure advanced fire-fighting equipment like drones, robots and quick response vehicles to fight fire in high rise buildings and pharma firms, at an estimated cost of Rs 100 crore.
The government has launched 65 vehicles including 25 water tenders and 40 quick response vehicles in April. It would launch 59 vehicles including water tenders, water bowsers and quick response multipurpose advanced vehicles next week.
As AP was the only state utilising cent per cent of the Rs 252 crore released for procuring fire-fighting equipment, the state has got the opportunity to get Rs 100 cr under incentivisation scheme.
Accordingly, the AP fire service department is planning to procure advanced fire-fighting equipment like drones and robots with that money. The equipment is expected to be ready in August or September.
The drones are capable of fighting fire in high rise buildings beyond 100 metres. Notably, capital Amaravati is getting such high-rise buildings. These drones carry specific quantities of water, 150-lt or so, and spray the water on the raging fire to douse the flames.
At present, AP uses sky lift fire-fighting equipment for high rise buildings to rescue victims and deliver high-volume water. Visakhapatnam has such buildings to a height of 90 metres, and Tirupati 54 metres tall buildings.
The fire services is also procuring robots to be used during fire mishaps especially in pharma and chemical firms. These can be used to spray water or mist and even provide live video coverage of raging fire to make quick and appropriate planning to fight the raging fire to minimise the extent of damage or loss toproperty.
These robots will be having a heat shield and water curtain system to be protected from fire. Moreover, a plan is also to get quick response vehicles like mist vehicles that can be used in narrow streets to reach places of fire mishaps and spray mist to douse the flames.
Fire service additional director G Srinivasulu said, “We will soon be procuring advanced fire-fighting equipment like drones and robots, to use them in high-rise buildings, mainly pharma firms, to douse fire and minimise the loss of life and property.”
Meanwhile, the fire force has advised the people not to use air-conditioners at low temperature for a long time as it would result in their compressors getting heated up, resulting in explosions and leakage of refrigerant gas.
