Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy, Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter re­spon­si­ble for Gen­der and Child Af­fairs, has com­mend­ed first re­spon­ders for their pro­fes­sion­al­ism and sup­port in deal­ing with a fire on the com­pound for the St Jude’s School for Girls in Bel­mont on Sat­ur­day af­ter­noon.

The min­is­ter said at around 4.30 pm, the man­ag­er of St Jude’s no­ti­fied the Gen­der and Child Af­fairs Di­vi­sion that the roof of one of the build­ings on the com­pound was on fire. Chief Fire Of­fi­cer Arnold Bris­to and per­son­nel from the Wright­son Road head­quar­ters re­spond­ed and quick­ly brought the fire un­der con­trol. Of­fi­cers from the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty, the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice, the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion and oth­er of­fi­cials of the school were al­so on the scene.

There were no in­juries to res­i­dents or staff and the fire did not spread to oth­er ar­eas of the fa­cil­i­ty, Web­ster-Roy said.

The fire de­stroyed the sec­ond floor of a build­ing on the com­pound. In­ves­ti­ga­tions are on­go­ing to de­ter­mine the cause of the blaze.