A mas­sive fire broke out yes­ter­day at Ice Con­nec­tion Lim­it­ed, a sty­ro­foam man­u­fac­tur­ing plant in Pi­ar­co, send­ing thick black smoke across the Churchill Roo­sevelt High­way and caus­ing heavy traf­fic dis­rup­tions.

The blaze start­ed short­ly af­ter mid­day on the north­ern side of the 100-me­tre fac­to­ry and quick­ly spread through the build­ing, which pro­duces sty­ro­foam prod­ucts for ice. Flames and smoke were vis­i­ble for miles, and mo­torists were forced to slow down or pull over.

Guardian Me­dia ar­rived be­fore fire­fight­ers and saw em­ploy­ees rush­ing to re­move ve­hi­cles from the com­pound. Sev­er­al ex­plo­sions were heard as parts of the struc­ture col­lapsed.

Fire ap­pli­ances from Port-of-Spain Head­quar­ters, Ari­ma, and Tu­na­puna re­spond­ed, with sup­port from the MTS, the Prison Ser­vice, and a wa­ter truck from the Pi­ar­co Fire Sta­tion. Crews drew wa­ter from a hy­drant at Pi­ar­co Plaza to fight the blaze.

As­sis­tant Chief Fire Of­fi­cer Noel Stew­art said staff in the box­ing area tried to ex­tin­guish the flames but failed.

“Thick black smoke was al­ready pour­ing from the north­ern side when we ar­rived. With the com­bined sup­port on scene, we were able to bring it un­der con­trol with­in 45 min­utes,” Stew­art said.

The In­ci­dent Com­mand Sys­tem was im­ple­ment­ed as fire­fight­ers worked to sup­press the fire, with damp­ing-down op­er­a­tions con­tin­u­ing in­to the evening to pre­vent flare-ups.

No in­juries were re­port­ed, and all staff were ac­count­ed for. The cause of the fire is un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion, and loss­es are ex­pect­ed to reach mil­lions.

Ice Con­nec­tion Lim­it­ed has op­er­at­ed in Pi­ar­co for years and is a ma­jor sup­pli­er in the cold-stor­age and ice dis­tri­b­u­tion sec­tor.

In a re­sponse to yes­ter­day’s in­ci­dent, the Fire Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion (FSA) is­sued a press re­lease, crit­i­cis­ing what it called a “decade-long pol­i­cy of de­fund­ing” the na­tion’s fire ser­vice.

The re­lease warned that chron­ic un­der-re­sourc­ing had left count­less busi­ness­es and com­mu­ni­ties “dan­ger­ous­ly ex­posed” to dis­as­ter.

It not­ed that yes­ter­day’s in­ci­dent re­quired the de­ploy­ment of four spe­cialised ap­pli­ances and ap­prox­i­mate­ly 30 of­fi­cers.

It said the sever­i­ty of the in­ci­dent high­light­ed a sys­temic is­sue, lament­ing that the cri­sis was the di­rect re­sult of a decade-long pol­i­cy of de­fund­ing the Fire Ser­vice.

The FSA’s Pub­lic Re­la­tions Com­mit­tee, which is­sued the re­lease, claimed this ne­glect had al­ready led to ma­jor busi­ness bank­rupt­cies, hun­dreds of mil­lions in loss­es, job dis­place­ment, and even loss of life.

The as­so­ci­a­tion said while fire­fight­ers were ex­pect­ed to re­spond to emer­gen­cies, they were do­ing so with dwin­dling re­sources and sup­port.

Fire­fight­ers have con­sis­tent­ly raised con­cerns over a short­age of func­tion­al fire ten­ders, out­dat­ed equip­ment, and in­suf­fi­cient staffing, ar­gu­ing that these is­sues posed a di­rect threat to pub­lic safe­ty and the na­tion­al econ­o­my.