RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

To­gie Cox, a fire of­fi­cer who spent years fight­ing to save oth­er peo­ple’s homes from the dev­as­ta­tion of fire, nev­er imag­ined that one day, he would stand help­less be­fore the charred re­mains of his own.

On Thurs­day around 12.30 pm, a fire gut­ted his house on Lewis Road, New Grant.

But some say Cox’s home could have been saved had the Princes Town Fire Sta­tion been open.

The Princes Town Fire Sta­tion had been closed in Ju­ly due to safe­ty con­cerns, leav­ing the sur­round­ing area with­out the im­me­di­ate sup­port of fire­fight­ers.

A source said fire­fight­ers from the Rio Claro Fire Sta­tion had to jour­ney to New Grant to save the house. By then the en­tire front of Cox’s home was al­ready de­stroyed. When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed yes­ter­day, Cox’s col­leagues were in­ves­ti­gat­ing the cause of the fire. He de­clined to com­ment.

Stand­ing amidst the ru­ins, Cox was un­able to hide the sor­row on his face.

A fire­fight­er who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty said it was up­set­ting that no at­tempts were be­ing made to re­open the Princes Town Fire Sta­tion.

For­mer coun­cil­lor Fran­cis Paul who knew Cox and his fam­i­ly well said he was heart­bro­ken over their loss.

Paul post­ed on his page ask­ing for a Go­FundMe to be set up for the fam­i­ly.

“This fire oc­curred min­utes away from the Princes Town Fire Sta­tion which is closed. Since its clo­sure, there have been sev­er­al fires in Moru­ga in­clud­ing one trag­ic in­stance when a woman lost her life. When I saw the fire, I felt ter­ri­ble for them. If the Princes Town Fire Sta­tion had been open, maybe this house would have been saved,” Paul said.

In Ju­ly, the fire­fight­ers from the Princes Town Fire Sta­tion were re­lo­cat­ed to Rio Claro and Pe­nal sta­tions due to their di­lap­i­dat­ed quar­ters. At the time, Chief Fire Of­fi­cer Arnold Bris­to ex­plained that the move was made to en­sure con­tin­ued ser­vice to the area, with equip­ment sta­tioned at Pe­nal to cov­er the Princes Town re­gion.

Keone Guy, pres­i­dent of the Fire Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion, claimed the Princes Town Fire Sta­tion had been ne­glect­ed and lament­ed that noth­ing was done to pre­vent it from falling in­to a state of dis­re­pair.

Ef­forts to con­tact Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds proved fu­tile as calls and mes­sages went unan­swered.