Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Res­i­dents in Princes Town and en­vi­rons can now breathe a sigh of re­lief with the re­turn of a fire sta­tion pres­ence in the area af­ter a two-year ab­sence.

A tem­po­rary fire sta­tion of­fi­cial­ly be­gan op­er­a­tions on Wednes­day from the for­mer URP build­ing on King Street, Princes Town, restor­ing emer­gency re­sponse ser­vices to the dis­trict. The orig­i­nal fire sta­tion build­ing on High Street, Princes Town, was shut down in Ju­ly 2024 due to a ro­dent in­fes­ta­tion and oth­er health and safe­ty con­cerns.

Over the years, there were sev­er­al fires, in­clud­ing fa­tal in­ci­dents, with res­i­dents call­ing for the restora­tion of the fire sta­tion be­cause of lengthy re­sponse time.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the tem­po­rary lo­ca­tion yes­ter­day, con­struc­tion work was still on­go­ing.

Act­ing As­sis­tant Chief Fire Of­fi­cer Gary Sookdeo ex­plained that the sta­tion was ful­ly func­tion­al, with 28 of­fi­cers and a fire ten­der from the re­cent batch of new trucks.

“We have re-es­tab­lished our pres­ence in Princes Town. There has been quite some time since the orig­i­nal sta­tion lo­cat­ed on High Street has been closed down. The pres­ence of this fire sta­tion back in Princes Town will en­able quick­er re­sponse to serve the pub­lic,” he said.

Pre­vi­ous­ly, Sookdeo re­called that sta­tions from Mon Re­pos and Rio Claro would have re­spond­ed to fire-re­lat­ed in­ci­dents in Princes Town and sur­round­ing ar­eas.

“We have re-es­tab­lished our pres­ence here, all in an ef­fort to serve, save life and prop­er­ty to the en­vi­rons and burgess­es,” he said.

Al­though the sta­tion was func­tion­al, Sookdeo said work was still on­go­ing on the con­struc­tion of the ap­pli­ance bay.

How­ev­er, he said of­fi­cers would be “quite com­fort­able” as the build­ing is out­fit­ted with the re­quired ne­ces­si­ties, in­clud­ing a dor­mi­to­ry.

Short­ly af­ter as­sum­ing of­fice in May 2025, Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der and Princes Town Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment Aiy­na Ali toured the for­mer sta­tion with fire of­fi­cials and oth­er stake­hold­ers, promis­ing to ad­dress the sit­u­a­tion ur­gent­ly.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Ali said her con­stituents were elat­ed, not­ing that the re­turn of fire ser­vices would bring re­lief, peace of mind and com­fort not on­ly to res­i­dents of Princes Town, but al­so those in Moru­ga/Table­land and Na­pari­ma.

“There is a faster re­sponse time now,” she said. How­ev­er, Ali ex­plained that work was be­ing car­ried out si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly at the sta­tion’s for­mer lo­ca­tion to even­tu­al­ly re­turn ser­vices there. She could not pro­vide a cost or time­line for that project, nor the cost to re­fur­bish the tem­po­rary fa­cil­i­ty.