Fire and Safety Discussions: : Emergency response to region-specific issues and threats

In this series of articles, we’ll break down every panel discussion at the Fire Middle East Conference 2024! Here are some compliance highlights and moments that made the event such a ground-breaking success. 

The Fire Middle East Conference opened its doors to over 200 C-suite decision-makers from across the Fire and Safety industries. This audience then participated and interacted with various panel discussions. These thought leaders sat down on stage and answered pressing questions, aimed to challenge them and produce key insights about the state of the industry, the coming Saudi Vision 2030 initiative and the new wave of innovative technologies.

From the fire risks of kitchens to emergency response. Our brilliant panel tackled the topic of how improvements can be made to create a collaborative approach to wildland fires, flooding and aviation sector firefighting.

-Mezher Qahtani, VP Fire Protection Advisor, aramco

-Teren Tan, Head of Emergency Services, Serco Middle East

-Jacob Junge, Assistant Fire Chief, GDC Middle East

-Lieut Col. Hamdan Almansori, Commander of Operations Department, Abu Dhabi Civil Defence Authority

-With RobertRea, Lead Facilitator, BR TRAINING SOLUTIONS LTD as our moderator.

Regarding the topic of community awareness and preparedness for emergency events, Mezher shared a moment when he realised that education is crucial to the safety of the public.

He said: “There has to be community awareness when we respond to modern challenges. During the Civil Defence announcements that heavy rain could be in this area (this week), I saw people not taking this warning seriously, which complicated things as a responder. Education and awareness are extremely important.”

He suggested: “Collaboration is key and very important, even for areas beyond our country. Everyone needs to talk to each other before a situation unfolds. Collaboration is more than communication, there has to be experiential training and the dissemination of information.”

Bob agreed, adding: “People don’t understand. 10cms of water can carry people, cars. So education is very important.”