Sascha Wil­son

Fol­low­ing a fire which de­stroyed a ware­house in Rio Claro yes­ter­day, calls have been made for a fire ten­der in the dis­trict.

The fire broke out just af­ter mid­day at a build­ing ad­join­ing Per­sad’s D’ Food King Su­per­mar­ket at Tabaquite Road.

For­tu­nate­ly, the su­per­mar­ket was not dam­aged.

Di­vi­sion­al Fire Of­fi­cer Robert Dook­ie told Guardian Me­dia that their pre­lim­i­nary in­for­ma­tion is that work­men were weld­ing and while do­ing “heat works” on the sec­ond lev­el the sty­ro­foam in­su­la­tion caught fire.

He said the fire was con­tained to the ware­house and their ini­tial in­for­ma­tion was that the su­per­mar­ket was not af­fect­ed.

He added that the ware­house which was at the back of the su­per­mar­ket was not yet stocked as it was un­der con­struc­tion.

For­tu­nate­ly, no one was in­jured. The es­ti­mat­ed loss­es and the ex­tent of the dam­age is still be­ing as­sessed.

A pass­er-by tried to help af­ter he re­alised that the build­ing was on fire.

Ker­wyn Bal­li­ram, a Min­istry of Works and Trans­port em­ploy­ee, re­called, “While walk­ing down the main road I saw Per­sad D’ Food King was on fire, while watch­ing Per­sad the Food King on fire I ask for a sledge (ham­mer). I buss a hole in the back of the build­ing for the smoke to es­cape and for the fire­men to out the fire in­side the build­ing.”

How­ev­er, ac­cord­ing to Ma­yaro-Rio Claro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Ray­mond Co­zi­er and Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray the ten­ders from the Ma­yaro and Princes Town Pinces Town Fire Sta­tion took a long time to ar­rive at the scene.

Co­zi­er said one of their wa­ter trucks as well as pri­vate wa­ter trucks were at the scene re­plen­ish­ing the fire ten­ders.

Com­plain­ing that there have been no fire ten­der in Rio Claro for more than eight months, he said there is al­so no fire am­bu­lance ser­vic­ing the area.

They de­pend on am­bu­lances from Princes Town and as far as San Fer­nan­do.

Al­so lament­ing the de­plorable road con­di­tions, he said, “It’s time for the ne­glect of the Ma­yaro/Rio Claro area to stop.”

Shar­ing sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments, Paray re­called that a cou­ple months ago a house was com­plete­ly de­stroyed by fire.

He said he wrote to the min­is­ter re­gard­ing the fire ten­der and al­so raised the mat­ter in Par­lia­ment.

Not­ing that the Rio Claro/Ma­yaro dis­trict is the sec­ond largest con­stituen­cy, he said even the Ma­yaro Fire Sta­tion lack prop­er re­sources and equip­ment.

Paray is hope­ful that come Bud­get Day on Mon­day an­nounce­ments will be made re­gard­ing al­lo­ca­tions for in­fra­struc­tur­al works and a fire ten­der in the con­stituen­cy.