Nakasongola develops a prototype of the first African firefighting machine


Today, I observed the successful launching of a prototype of an African firefighting vehicle at Nakasongola.
This vehicle is a convergence of two ideas that have been part of my life.
The first idea, is the traditional way of putting out bushfire ( okuteera omuriro ogw'ekishugyi).
In suppressing bushfire, using appropriate tree branches (not too small not too heavy), you tackle the bushfire from the rear (okugureetwa aha mugongo).
The bushfire is always driven by the wind. If the wind is blowing from the East to the West, the fire will burn from the East to the West ( I.e the same direction as the wind).
It is very dangerous to try and tackle the fire from the direction it is burning towards (in this case from West to East).
The fire and the smoke can easily catch up with you and kill you (either by suffocation and blinding from the smoke or actually burning).
This is not to forget the snakes and other animals that will be running away from the fire in the direction it is heading which can be a danger to you, especially the snakes.
Whenever I watch people in Western countries fighting fire on the TV, I do not see any systematic pattern of abating this issue - the angle from which you attack the fire.
Hence, the first idea of this vehicle is the African idea of fighting the fire from the rear.
The second idea of this vehicle is from my military background of using tracked vehicles (those that move on chains rather than wheels - ebijegyere versus emipiira) which have good cross country mobility capacity (they can move through the bush, they don't have to follow the roads), therefore, after consulting our engineers, we decided to convert a tracked military vehicle into a fire fighting vehicle by removing the guns and the turret and replacing them with a water tank with hoses for spraying water.
In our opinion, such a tracked vehicle (moving on chains) is better than aircraft or vehicles which are moving on wheels and are, therefore, road-bound.
The advantage for the tracked vehicles is that, if they are backed by other tracked water carriers, they can sustainably fight the fire without stopping unlike the aircraft which must always go back to recharge.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

MTN uganda on is on fire because of espionage,fraud,tax evasion and unfair competetive tendencies

MTN uganda must have faced the toughest times in its business spel for the beginning of this year.But as many may be aware,MTN's problem are not of today only but a series of mistakes and misunderstanding that gradually escalated from around mid 2010 through to early days of 2019.The most alarming of these mistakes was the unsurety of the customers privacy and the unrealistic licence it got after a long sacffle with the government of the republic of uganda. Many people have been wondering how or if its true that mtn and its staff was involved in data leakages,exposing customers privacy to intrusion or any sort of espionage.on the first two i can assure you that mtn face data leakages and its customers were exposed to dangers of loosing their private data to dubious intruders,plus fraudulent acts that did occur mostly on mobile money services,its really annoying that mtn when contacted on these fraudulent issues alway would take a low pace and in most case ignore it in tge long end
Read more

United kingdom's Coronavirus Contact Tracing App Assists 'Surveillance State'

Image
In the letter, the signatories - which include tech justice NGO Foxglove and digital rights campaigners Access Now - say the proposed app could be another step towards a surveillance state. Campaign groups have written an open letter to UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson warning GCHQ and its digital arm, the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), will have the capacity to re-identify the phones of people who install the country’s coronavirus contact-tracing app. They also note the legal framework underpinning the software, which is currently being trialled on the Isle of Wight, is believed to be inadequate to protect people from misuse of their data by the Joint Committee on Human Rights. “Parliament has to quickly issue an adequate legal framework that guarantees users’ human rights protection. In addition, contrary to some recommendations, the app the Government is trialling uses a centralised model for the collection, processing and storage of users’ data. The centralised rec
Read more

Citzens have done a great work in the arrest of an armed robber

Vigilant residents arrest armed man Residents of Kiwatule this afternoon foiled an attempted robbery in Kiwatule after gunman entered Liquid Cash Emergency Loans with intent to rob. The suspect, Isaac Mulengenyi, 23, reportedly fired in the air to scare onlookers however mob charged at him, arrested and handed him to police. A case of aggravated robbery has been opened at Ntinda Police Station Vide CRB 123/2019 while a rifle has been recovered with nine rounds of ammunition. The suspect is still being detained at Ntinda pending appearance before court.
Read more