An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­nal­isa.paul@guardian.co.tt

The re­cent ac­qui­si­tion of two new fire ten­ders has been de­scribed as a “woe­ful­ly in­ad­e­quate” so­lu­tion to the se­vere lack of equip­ment and re­sources ham­per­ing the op­er­a­tions of the T&T Fire Ser­vice.

Crit­i­cal of the slow pace by the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty to prop­er­ly out­fit fire sta­tions across the coun­try, pres­i­dent of the Fire Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion, Leo Ramkissoon, on Thurs­day said, “Def­i­nite­ly not enough has been done or is be­ing done.”

He said fire sta­tions in Wood­brook, Bel­mont, Mor­vant, San­ta Cruz, Ch­aguara­mas and Ma­yaro were among those cur­rent­ly lack­ing fire-fight­ing ca­pac­i­ty.

“Those sta­tions re­main un­ad­dressed in terms of ap­pli­ances and we see no light at the end of the tun­nel in those re­gards what­so­ev­er,” Ramkissoon said.

Ramkissoon called on the pub­lic to join with the as­so­ci­a­tion and “join fire of­fi­cers in call­ing your rel­e­vant Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment and any oth­er rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties to en­sure that the fire sta­tion re­spon­si­ble for that area is prop­er­ly out­fit­ted.”

“Too many com­mu­ni­ties are un­pro­tect­ed and mem­bers of the pub­lic are not speak­ing out suf­fi­cient­ly,” he added.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia af­ter com­plet­ing an in­spec­tion at the Pi­ar­co Fire Sta­tion yes­ter­day, Ramkissoon said, “There are sev­er­al ap­pli­ances there with se­ri­ous de­fects, so the of­fi­cers are op­er­at­ing these ve­hi­cles with a high de­gree of dis­com­fort and it will not be long be­fore these ve­hi­cles are in­op­er­a­ble them­selves.”

He added, “It is woe­ful­ly in­ad­e­quate...the ac­tion that has been tak­en and is be­ing un­der­tak­en.”

Ramkissoon al­so sug­gest­ed that Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley set up an in­ter-min­is­te­r­i­al com­mit­tee that “can take the re­quired ur­gent ac­tion at a high lev­el, to get ap­provals and what is need­ed to fast-track the pur­chase of ap­pli­ances and equip­ment.”

Warn­ing that the lack of ap­pli­ances and se­vere short­age of equip­ment had left the pub­lic vul­ner­a­ble and at risk, he added, “Fire of­fi­cers them­selves are se­ri­ous­ly ham­pered in their abil­i­ty to pro­tect life and prop­er­ty.”

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds on Wednes­day ad­mit­ted while the Fire Ser­vice had re­ceived two new fire trucks, they re­mained out of com­mis­sion as they were yet to be reg­is­tered.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands the two new ten­ders may be sent to ser­vice the Pi­ar­co and Crown Point sta­tions, where there are se­ri­ous fire ap­pli­ance de­fi­cien­cies.

This news fol­lowed five days af­ter 98-year-old vi­su­al­ly-im­paired Mal­colm Di­az died in a house fire in San­ta Cruz on Sep­tem­ber 8.

Natasha Nan­coo, 48, along with her sons Adesh Joseph, 10, and En­rique Reyes, 19, al­so died in a fire at their San­gre Grande home on Au­gust 19. And in sep­a­rate in­ci­dents in Ju­ly, 75-year-old Michael Cor­num and 78-year-old Win­ston Blake al­so lost their lives in sep­a­rate house fires in Point Fortin and Mal­ick re­spec­tive­ly. In April, Kem­ba Mor­ris and her daugh­ter Za­ya, eight, died in a fire af­ter be­ing trapped in their home in Siparia.

Fol­low­ing each in­ci­dent, res­i­dents in the re­spec­tive com­mu­ni­ties com­plained of the slow re­sponse by fire of­fi­cials, as they ar­gued the lack of func­tion­al ten­ders could have saved lives and prop­er­ty.

Ramkissoon urged the pub­lic to keep a list of num­bers for the near­est fire sta­tion and to fa­mil­iarise them­selves with it.

He said, “Try to find out whether the sta­tion is op­er­at­ing or not. Ir­re­spec­tive of whether it is op­er­at­ing or not, you should take every pre­cau­tion to se­cure your own home and so on. That would in­volve a lot of things; en­sur­ing look­ing at your elec­tri­cal in­stal­la­tions and en­sur­ing they are prop­er­ly in­spect­ed.”

He al­so ap­pealed to peo­ple not “to over­load cir­cuits. “En­sure you have warn­ing de­vices in­stalled, such as smoke alarms and smoke de­tec­tors. You should al­so have fire ex­tin­guish­ers in­stalled,” he said.