The longer the T&T Fire Ser­vice re­mains crit­i­cal­ly un­der-equipped, the longer this coun­try is at risk of a full-scale fire dis­as­ter, with the po­ten­tial for loss of life and prop­er­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly acute dur­ing the cur­rent hot spell.

Al­though there are many con­tribut­ing fac­tors in the un­prece­dent­ed num­ber of dead­ly house fires that have oc­curred in just the past few months, what stands out is the in­abil­i­ty of fire­fight­ers to re­spond to these emer­gen­cies in time to avert tragedies.

The re­cent fire deaths come af­ter years of warn­ings and com­plaints from fire­fight­ers, through their rep­re­sen­ta­tives, the Fire Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion, about the crit­i­cal lack of ap­pli­ances and equip­ment at fire sta­tions across the coun­try.

There have been promis­es from the au­thor­i­ties that are yet to be ful­ly met, way too many ex­cus­es and frus­trat­ing pub­lic sec­tor bu­reau­cra­cy ham­per­ing long promised ac­qui­si­tions.

Ne­glect and chron­ic mis­man­age­ment, at the very worst, are the on­ly ways to ex­plain how fire sta­tions lo­cat­ed in some of the most heav­i­ly pop­u­lat­ed parts of the coun­try—Wood­brook, Bel­mont, Mor­vant, San­ta Cruz, Ch­aguara­mas and Ma­yaro—are with­out trucks and oth­er es­sen­tial equip­ment.

Equal­ly alarm­ing is the sit­u­a­tion at the Pi­ar­co Fire Sta­tion, the fa­cil­i­ty that ser­vices the coun­try’s main air­port, where sev­er­al of the ap­pli­ances are de­fec­tive and could soon be in­op­er­a­ble.

This abysmal state of af­fairs in the T&T Fire Ser­vice has se­vere­ly com­pro­mised re­sponse times in re­cent fire emer­gen­cies, lead­ing to trag­ic out­comes.

A few days ago, Mal­colm Di­az, a 98-year-old vi­su­al­ly im­paired man, died in a fire at his San­ta Cruz home. Last month, Natasha Nan­coo, 48, and her sons, Adesh Joseph, 10, and En­rique Reyes, 19, died in a fire at their San­gre Grande home and in Ju­ly, house fires claimed the lives of 75-year-old Michael Cor­num in Point Fortin and 78-year-old Win­ston Blake in Mal­ick.

But the tragedy that put fo­cus on the un­ac­cept­able state of the Fire Ser­vice were the deaths of Kem­ba Mor­ris and her eight-year-old daugh­ter, Za­ya. They were trapped when a fire broke out in their home, lo­cat­ed a short dis­tance from the Siparia Fire Sta­tion, but be­cause of a non-func­tion­ing fire ten­der, help did not get to them on time.

The pub­lic out­cry af­ter that in­ci­dent in April, prompt­ed re­spons­es from Chief Fire Of­fi­cer Arnold Bris­to and the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry. Even Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley was moved to com­ment on that tragedy and there were un­der­tak­ings to tack­le the sit­u­a­tion with ur­gency

How­ev­er, five months lat­er, lit­tle has changed. Many com­mu­ni­ties are un­pro­tect­ed and fire­fight­ers risk their lives every time they re­spond to emer­gen­cies be­cause many of them don’t have breath­ing ap­pa­ra­tus and oth­er pro­tec­tive gear.

Two re­cent­ly ac­quired fire trucks have not yet been reg­is­tered, so they can­not be put in­to ser­vice at Pi­ar­co and Crown Point, and there is no word on when ap­pli­ances will be pro­cured for the sta­tions that have been with­out ten­ders and oth­er vi­tal equip­ment for years.

With lives lost and many oth­ers at risk, it is tak­ing way too long to fix the prob­lems in the Fire Ser­vice.

The in­creased num­ber of house fires is not the on­ly cause for con­cern. This is a heav­i­ly in­dus­tri­alised na­tion, mak­ing the need for ful­ly equipped emer­gency fa­cil­i­ties even more ur­gent.

This sit­u­a­tion should be re­spond­ed to as a na­tion­al emer­gency be­cause that is what it is.