JANELLE BERNARD

Pro­duc­er

A warn­ing that the Fire Ser­vice is in dire need of re­sources, and the lack of equip­ment is se­vere­ly ham­per­ing the work of fire of­fi­cers and as a con­se­quence, cit­i­zens lives are be­ing put at risk.

It comes from Keone Guy, pres­i­dent of the Fire Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go, who told Guardian Me­dia to­day that there are still too many sta­tions with­out fire ap­pli­ances and prop­er fire­fight­ing equip­ment.

He stress­es that more must be done to en­sure all fire sta­tions are prop­er­ly equipped and are not de­pen­dant on oth­er fire sta­tions for equip­ment.

He notes this has been the case with those pro­vid­ing cov­er­age to lo­ca­tions that are heav­i­ly in­dus­tri­alised or dense­ly pop­u­lat­ed such as San Fer­nan­do, Cou­va and San Juan.

He ex­plained the prac­tice was that ap­pli­ances would be tak­en from an­oth­er sta­tion and placed with those op­er­at­ing in these high pri­or­i­ty ar­eas, to en­sure there is prop­er cov­er­age.

“The short­ages are so se­vere that there are no longer any sta­tions that we could pull ap­pli­ances for,” Guy re­vealed. “We’ve reached a stage where, I be­lieve, the Fire Ser­vice has al­most to­tal­ly col­lapsed. That is the state that we are in.”

Guy is con­cerned that the lives of cit­i­zens con­tin­ue to be se­vere­ly at risk.

He says it is im­per­a­tive that fi­nances are pumped in­to the Fire Ser­vice and a se­ri­ous in­vest­ment made to up­grade its equip­ment and fa­cil­i­ties.

He al­so made a call for fire of­fi­cers to have ac­cess to and re­ceive con­tin­u­ous train­ing.

“Over the past decade, there was a pol­i­cy of un­der-in­vest­ment and even a de­fund­ing of the T&T Fire Ser­vice,” he as­serts. “I don’t know what the mo­ti­va­tion was but the im­pact is there. We are see­ing it now—in the num­ber of deaths; the dis­place­ment of per­sons; loss of jobs… The eco­nom­ic im­pact is re­al. De­spite prob­a­bly not be­ing tru­ly mea­sured, the im­pact is there and cit­i­zens are fac­ing the con­se­quences of it on a dai­ly ba­sis, and it will con­tin­ue for a while.”

“Even with im­me­di­ate in­vest­ment,” he says, “it’s go­ing to take some time to ac­quire the nec­es­sary equip­ment that we need to train up our of­fi­cers for the new risks they are fac­ing.”

Keone Guy was a guest on to­day’s edi­tion of CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew show.