Pres­i­dent of the T&T Fire Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion Leo Ramkissoon says work­ers in the Forestry Di­vi­sion need to be com­mend­ed for their hard work and ded­i­ca­tion in the fight to erad­i­cate bush fires.

He said it was "re­al­ly sad" to learn of the death of se­nior forester Kei­th Camp­bell and the in­jured work­ers.

"It is a re­al heart­break­er that one of the work­ers has per­ished and the as­so­ci­a­tion sends its con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly of the vic­tim and the in­jured work­ers. It is re­al­ly sad."

Ramkissoon said forestry work­ers and oth­ers who as­sist in the erad­i­ca­tion dri­ve were self-mo­ti­vat­ed.

In an in­ter­view yes­ter­day, he said, "They have min­i­mal equip­ment in com­par­i­son to the T&T Fire Ser­vice. They have min­i­mal fire­fight­ing gear."

He said he be­lieved that if Camp­bell was wear­ing the cor­rect per­son­al pro­tec­tive equip­ment and cloth­ing, it may have helped in pre­serv­ing his life.

"Clear­ly he would not have sus­tained that amount of burns had he been wear­ing the gear."

Camp­bell was said to have suf­fered over 70 per cent burns over his body.

How­ev­er, Ramkissoon said if those work­ers were be­ing asked to as­sist fire of­fi­cers in fight­ing fires at the for­est lev­el, they ought to be giv­en the right equip­ment.

He said, "Every year I see them go up there and they have these lit­tle wa­ter tanks on their backs and they're try­ing. It is amaz­ing to see the ef­forts these guys are mak­ing."

The Fire Ser­vice has so far re­spond­ed to over 400 bush fire calls for the past three months.

He said bush fires cov­ered the North­ern Range and al­so af­fect­ed cen­tral and south­ern Trinidad.

He made an ap­peal to those who may be in­volved in set­ting fires, whether they were planters, hunters or those who prac­tic­ing the slash and burn tech­nique to re­frain from do­ing so be­cause it was il­le­gal and un­eth­i­cal.

"To the pub­lic, I ask that you all make an ef­fort to be­come aware of what how your ac­tions are af­fect­ing oth­ers and the en­vi­ron­ment. We ought to be a lot more cau­tious as to how we go about our dai­ly rou­tine."

Ramkissoon said not enough was be­ing done to raise pub­lic aware­ness and al­so called for amend­ments and en­force­ment of the law. (RKR)