With the introduction of the Automated Fire Compliance and Safety System (AFCAS)
On a January night in 2025, fire tore through Kantamanto Market in Accra, one of the world’s largest secondhand clothing markets, destroying more than 7,000 stalls and upending the livelihoods of over 30,000 traders. Fourteen months later, in April this year, flames swept through the Kejetia Market in Kumasi, one of Ghana’s oldest and busiest trading centres. Between the two infernos lay a trail of similar disasters — Adum, Techiman, the Tamale Timber Market — each one a fresh reminder that Ghana’s relationship with fire safety has, for too long, been reactive rather than preventive.
For decades, the country’s fire safety regime has rested on paper certificates, manual inspections and a patchwork of enforcement that even the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) itself concedes has struggled to keep pace with the scale of the problem. GNFS training materials indicate that more than seven in 10 properties nationwide currently lack a valid fire certificate, that manual processing has typically months, and that paper-based certificates have long been vulnerable to forgery — leaving no central, real-time record of which buildings, or which extinguishers, actually meet the standard.
That gap is what the GNFS is now moving to close. In a press statement issued on August 28, 2026, the Service announced the nationwide implementation of the Automated Fire Compliance and Safety System (AFCAS), a digital platform now open to the public for the online application of fire permits, fire certificates and equipment tagging. The rollout gives full digital effect to the Fire Precaution (Premises) Regulations, 2003 (L.I. 1724), as amended by L.I. 2249, which require every premises in the country — commercial or residential — to hold a valid fire permit before construction and a fire certificate on completion.
What sets AFCAS apart, according to the GNFS, is that it is not a single application but six integrated digital systems working together to modernise fire compliance end-to-end:
• Digital Fire Permit & Certificate Portal — automates the application, inspection, approval and renewal of fire permits and certificates from end to end, cutting processing time from a typical 21 days down to a maximum of 10, with every certificate carrying a unique, scannable QR code and automated renewal reminders sent 90, 60 and 30 days before expiry;
• Fire Equipment Tagging and Tracking System — builds a national inventory of fire safety equipment, from extinguishers, hydrants and hose reels to fire doors, alarm panels, LPG cylinders, elevators and fire engines, each fitted with a scannable tag that lets inspectors verify certification and maintenance history instantly;
• Thermal Imaging Wiring Certification — deploys thermal imaging cameras to detect hidden electrical fire hazards such as overloaded circuits, loose connections and overheating equipment that are invisible to the naked eye, catching the faults that most often spark structural fires before they ignite;
• 24-Hour Digital Surveillance — connects heat, smoke and gas sensors at high-risk premises such as fuel stations, fuel depots, industrial facilities and major public buildings, streaming data continuously to AFCAS and routing real-time alerts straight to GNFS district commands the moment a risk threshold is breached;
• Training and Certification System — maintains a digital, verifiable record of every officer’s competency, from GNFS-TVET credentials to international qualifications such as NFPA, IFE, JOIFF and NEBOSH, ensuring only properly certified personnel carry out inspections; and
• Service Provider Licensing — vets and licenses the fire-safety companies and professionals permitted to install, service, retail or import equipment across nine licence categories, closing the door on unlicensed operators and substandard installations.
Taken together, the six systems are designed to turn compliance from a paper exercise into something the GNFS can see, verify and enforce in real time — nationwide, and at any hour of the day. It is a scale of ambition the GNFS itself has not shied away from: AFCAS’s own stated vision is to become Africa’s leading technology-driven fire safety compliance platform.
Under the directive, all vehicle owners, property owners and occupiers are required to apply through the AFCAS platform, accessible at www.afcas.gnfs.gov.gh, while the procurement departments of businesses, institutions and Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) have been directed to engage only GNFS-AFCAS licensed contractors going forward. All newly imported fire equipment will be tagged at the point of entry, while owners of equipment already in use have a six-month window from the date of publication to have their extinguishers, alarms and safety systems inspected and tagged by GNFS-authorised officers.
The timing is significant. AFCAS arrives against the backdrop of a punishing run of fire disasters that has tested public confidence in the country’s fire safety systems — from Kantamanto and Adum to Kejetia — each incident renewing calls for a more structural, technology-driven approach to prevention rather than the familiar cycle of emergency response and post-disaster mourning. In moving from paper-based compliance to a searchable, scannable national database, the GNFS is, in effect, betting that the next major fire in a Ghanaian market or building can be the one that never happens — because the extinguisher on the wall was verified and functional, not expired and forgotten.
The initiative also marks an early and defining feature of the administration of Chief Fire Officer Daniella Mawusi Ntow Sarpong, who was confirmed in substantive office earlier this year as the first woman to lead the 70-year-old Service. Since taking charge, Mrs Ntow Sarpong has spoken publicly of her commitment to a more open, transparent and disciplined GNFS — one built on accountability rather than assumption. AFCAS, with its emphasis on visible compliance, digital accountability and self-generated funding for modernisation, gives that vision a concrete, nationwide platform: a fire service that no longer simply responds to disaster, but is structurally built to prevent it.
In the statement, signed by the Head of Public Relations, Divisional Officer One (DO I) Emmanuel Bonney, the GNFS said it was counting on the full cooperation of all stakeholders as the country begins what it described as “this key national initiative to improve fire safety nationwide.” Members of the public seeking further information may contact the Service on 0557679695 or 0243288969, or visit the AFCAS portal directly.
For a country that has spent the past two years counting the cost of preventable fires, AFCAS is a wager worth making — that the next disaster averted will not make headlines, precisely because it never happened at all.
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