Atlantic Fire Services hosted Training Day 2 in Dunoon, Cape Town, delivering vital fire awareness, fire safety, and practical fire extinguisher training to strengthen community-level fire response in this high-risk area.

The training was attended by:

• 10 Volunteer Team Leaders
• 100 new volunteer community members
• Community leaders
• Captain Van der Merwe and his team from SAPS
• City of Cape Town Metro Police
• City of Cape Town Disaster Risk Management

To equip teams for immediate response, 40 x 9kg DCP fire extinguishers and 20 reflector jackets were issued to community responders.

Commander Paul Krüger addressed the gathering:

“We are in Dunoon in Cape Town with the community leaders, team leaders, the community, Captain Van der Merwe of the South African Police, Metro Police, and Disaster Management. We have just finished our community volunteer program, which entails fire safety, fire awareness and practical use of 9kg fire extinguishers. The attendance was excellent.

There are close to a hundred people here. Unfortunately, this area has seen some very devastating fires over the last month, and these fire extinguishers will now be used by teams that were formed in the community to protect the areas as a first response — to get to these fires before they get uncontrollable.”

He further explained the ongoing support structure:

“Our program is to empower the community. We are donating fire extinguishers, we are donating our training, and we’re also donating support. If you use a fire extinguisher, we will have WhatsApp groups where the team leader reports it, and we will come and replace the extinguishers.

Some of the volunteers here in Dunoon have already killed about four fires with the fire extinguishers. So today is about empowering the community so that the community can be strong enough to fight these fires before they get out of hand, like what happened three weeks ago.”

Captain Van der Merwe, Sector Commander for the area, welcomed the initiative:

“From our side, the police side, we want to thank Atlantic Fire Services for the opportunity that they created for the community of Dunoon. When disasters happen, we become one.

If we can expand this program — getting more volunteers, more fire extinguishers, and more experience in firefighting — we can minimise or contain the fires. Thank you for the opportunity, and thank you to the community that attended the training.”

Dunoon Training Day 2 marked another critical step in building resilient, fire-ready communities, ensuring that residents are equipped, trained, and supported to respond when every second counts.

Together, we empower communities. Together, we protect lives and homes.