KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Even as the Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice main­tains that cur­rent dry con­di­tions are typ­i­cal for this time of year, the Fire Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion is call­ing for stronger en­force­ment of fire pre­ven­tion laws as fire­fight­ers con­tend with fre­quent bush­fires across the coun­try.

As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Keone Guy said a co­or­di­nat­ed ap­proach by the Fire Ser­vice, Po­lice Ser­vice, and Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty is need­ed to re­duce the num­ber of fires, many of which he sug­gest­ed are caused by hu­man ac­tiv­i­ty.

“We need greater en­force­ment; we need ed­u­ca­tion from the Trinidad and To­ba­go Fire Ser­vice as well as the Forestry Di­vi­sion that has a role to play in this as well,” Guy said.

He said im­proved prac­tices and stricter ad­her­ence to reg­u­la­tions could ease the bur­den on fire­fight­ers dur­ing the dry sea­son while help­ing to pro­tect the coun­try’s nat­ur­al en­vi­ron­ment.

“In any event, we can see that with bet­ter prac­tices, the hope is that we will be able to de­crease those num­bers, which will re­move some of the strain that is on the Fire Ser­vice dur­ing this time and en­sure that we are able to pre­serve the flo­ra and fau­na that we present­ly have in Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Guy made the com­ments in re­sponse to a Sun­day Guardian query on the wel­fare of fire of­fi­cers, as crews con­tin­ue to re­spond to bush and for­est fires that threat­en prop­er­ty, wildlife and pub­lic health. Videos cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia have shown thick smoke along ma­jor road­ways, re­duc­ing vis­i­bil­i­ty and cre­at­ing haz­ardous con­di­tions for mo­torists.

Ac­cord­ing to Guy, bush­fires re­main a sig­nif­i­cant op­er­a­tional con­cern, with the as­so­ci­a­tion record­ing an in­crease in in­ci­dents over re­cent years. He said fire­fight­ers have re­spond­ed to an es­ti­mat­ed 3,000 to 4,000 bush­fire-re­lat­ed calls since 2023 and warned that the an­nu­al fig­ure for 2026 could ex­ceed the year­ly av­er­age of 3,500.

“You dri­ve along the high­way, you can see the num­ber of fires that are oc­cur­ring along the road­ways, and when you look to the hills in the North­ern Range, as well as parts of South Trinidad, you can see large bush­fires al­most on a dai­ly ba­sis. So far, we ex­pect that we will ex­ceed the an­nu­al av­er­age. Of course, these things are in­flu­enced by hu­man be­hav­iour and the pro­longed dry sea­son,” Guy said.

De­spite the in­creas­ing de­mand, Guy said fire­fight­ers have con­tin­ued to per­form their du­ties with pro­fes­sion­al­ism, even as long­stand­ing chal­lenges per­sist with­in the ser­vice.

He point­ed to on­go­ing short­ages of equip­ment, at­tribut­ing the is­sue to years of un­der­in­vest­ment. While ac­knowl­edg­ing the re­cent ac­qui­si­tion of breath­ing ap­pa­ra­tus sets, Guy said gaps re­main in both op­er­a­tional re­sources and pro­tec­tive gear.

“Short­ages of ap­pli­ances, that is, emer­gency ve­hi­cles, as well as per­son­al pro­tec­tive equip­ment like fire­fight­ing gloves, hel­mets and oth­er gear, do im­pact the num­ber of of­fi­cers we have avail­able. Even when they re­spond, it af­fects how ex­posed those of­fi­cers can be on the front­line en­gaged in fire­fight­ing on a dai­ly ba­sis.”

Guy de­scribed the sit­u­a­tion as a ma­jor con­cern for the as­so­ci­a­tion, not­ing that in­ad­e­quate pro­tec­tive equip­ment in­creas­es the risk to fire­fight­ers op­er­at­ing in haz­ardous con­di­tions.

With the dry sea­son typ­i­cal­ly run­ning from Jan­u­ary to May, the as­so­ci­a­tion is urg­ing the pub­lic to ex­er­cise cau­tion and com­ply with ex­ist­ing reg­u­la­tions.

“We ask peo­ple to re­frain from light­ing out­door fires un­less they are able to vis­it a fire sta­tion and ob­tain a fire per­mit, which present­ly costs just $10,” Guy said.

He added that des­ig­nat­ed fire guardians work along­side the Fire Ser­vice dur­ing the dry sea­son to as­sist with the per­mit­ting process and guide mem­bers of the pub­lic on safe and le­gal burn­ing prac­tices.

“If mem­bers of the pub­lic vis­it our sta­tions, they will be guid­ed on how to legal­ly ob­tain a per­mit and how to safe­ly dis­card any refuse they may like to burn or any land clear­ing they would like to en­gage in dur­ing this time.”