Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif on Saturday suggested to the authorities concerned to utilize the latest firefighting techniques and arrangements to overcome fire eruption incidents.

Chairing a virtual meeting over the recent incident of forest fire in Shirani district of Balochistan, he stressed that all the latest tools and techniques should be employed to handle such situations in future.

He referred to the use of the latest fire suppression tactics used in the United States and Australia, including spraying of wildfire retardants through helicopters.

The prime minister also directed the authorities concerned to take immediate steps for the compensation of those families who had lost their near ones in the incident.

He assured the provincial government of the Federal Government’s full support to share the grief of the bereaved families and assist them financially, including bearing of educational and medical expenditures of the siblings of these families.

The prime minister said precious lives were lost in the unfortunate incident and observed that immediate and emergency steps were required to cope with the catastrophe.

The prime minister also directed that monitoring teams should be deployed in the affected area and keep close coordination with other related authorities till the issue was resolved.

He also sought a future mechanism to overcome such incidents and tasked the National Disaster Management Authority chairman to submit a plan within next two weeks after consultation with other relevant authorities.