Fire Services Director Superintendent Walter Evans said last week’s Fire Safety Awareness Week was a success.

“The aim is to get everyone thinking about fire safety and how fires can be prevented,” he told The Bahama Journal over the weekend.

“We are not just trying to prevent deaths we are also trying to get people aware about fire prevention. There are some wooden homes in areas where there are several of them right next to each other and if one home is on fire, those other homes are also in danger, so we need people to be aware of that.”

Superintendent Evans also explained the importance of residents following all the fire safety tips.

“We can only do so much about educating the people especially in one week, but the key is to remember these prevention tips throughout the year so that everyone can be on one accord,” he said.

“We want to reduce the numbers of fires overall.”

Mr. Evans said the evacuation process went well as it was oversubscribed by 50 per cent.

“We anticipated some 4,000 people to participate, but we had 6,000 people,” he said.

“We also installed over 100 detectors in the homes of needy citizens. The Fireman’s Challenge was also exciting. On Friday was supposed to be a drill on R.M. Bailey Park but we have to re-schedule that and then we ended on Saturday with a fun, run walk and we had a very encouraging turnout.”

Minister of State for National Security, Keith Bell said statistics reveal a notable reduction in fire-related deaths, injuries and property loss over the period January 2011 to August 2011 and the corresponding period for 2012.

“Unfortunately, there were two lives lost in 2012,” he said at the opening of Fire Safety week on Monday.

“This year, 12 persons suffered injuries compared to 29 for the same period in 2011.”

Mr. Bell said the government, in protecting people, is mandated by law to provide a satisfactory level of fire protection, education, response, and detection.

Nineteen people died in fires in 2011.