Nine of 15 Counties Have No Fire Truck, Fire Service Says

Published: August 17, 2026

GBARNGA, Bong County – Nine of Liberia’s 15 counties have no fire truck, the head of the Liberia National Fire Service said over the weekend. In this county, a commercial fire burned for more than two hours in March while onlookers threw bottled water at it, and a house fire in May killed two small boys.

Commander G. Warsuwah Barvoul said only six counties are equipped, leaving the rest with almost no capacity to respond to a fire disaster, and blamed inadequate budget support for the service’s county operations. He spoke in Gbarnga at the commissioning of a new fire station and the dedication of a fire truck to the service’s Bong County detachment.

Bong now has both, and Barvoul said it still is not enough. “This is not enough. We need additional fire trucks to service the county, given how large the county is,” he said.

According to Barvoul, the truck should have reached Bong much earlier, but no station was available to house it. He credited Sen. Prince Moye and the county administration with financing the station’s construction, which he said removed the obstacle to deployment. He urged residents to treat the equipment as their own and warned against setting fires near roads.

Barvoul used the ceremony to press the Legislature on pay. “We are underpaid. We take risks to protect lives, but we are being paid small money,” he said, calling for salaries that reflect the risks firefighters face. He said personnel are routinely exposed to smoke and other hazards and should receive quarterly medical checkups. He also called for new recruitment to replace aging staff.

Bong County District 4 Rep. Robert Whomba, who chairs the Unity Party county caucus, said low pay across the security sector has exposed the country to serious danger and that the government needs to improve welfare for those personnel.

Moye said he would take the shortage to President Joseph Nyuma Boakai, press for trucks for the counties that have none, and push for higher firefighter salaries during deliberations on the 2027 national budget. He said he financed the Gbarnga station because fire incidents in the county were rising and the local service could not respond.

The record in Bong this year supports him. In March, a fire destroyed the upper floors of three businesses on Gbarnga Broad Street, including Paulma Store, Up Steps Entertainment Center, and West Africa Enterprise. It burned for more than two hours. More than 50 people gathered at the scene and could do nothing, with some using bottled water to fight the flames because no firefighting equipment was available. In May, a midnight fire in Gbarnga’s Chief Compound Community killed two children, 4-year-old Clarence and 5-year-old Dennis, who were trapped inside a five-bedroom house.

Neither Barvoul nor Moye said when the remaining nine counties might be equipped, and the fire service did not provide the cost of a truck or the size of its current budget request.