The Trinidad and To­ba­go Fire Ser­vice (TTFS) had its new­ly con­se­crat­ed Colour (Flag) pre­sent­ed to­day, in an of­fi­cial cer­e­mo­ny presided over the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, Stu­art Young MP.

In an of­fi­cial state­ment, the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty ex­plains that the or­der to con­se­crate a Colour, is to de­clare and make an or­ga­ni­za­tion’s flag sa­cred.  Thus, to­day’s cer­e­mo­ny made the Colour or Flag of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Fire Ser­vice (TTFS) a sa­cred item of the Ser­vice and from that time for­ward it should be treat­ed with rev­er­ence.

The cer­e­mo­ny took place at the Grand Stand, Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah in Port of Spain to­day, Sun­day 24 Jan­u­ary 2021.

The Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter told those present that he was once again filled with im­mense pride, to see that the Fire Ser­vice can con­tin­ue to stand proud­ly with the of­fi­cers from the oth­er Di­vi­sions of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, not on­ly for their hard work and pro­fes­sion­al­ism, but al­so for the con­se­cra­tion of their flag as well.

Min­is­ter Young not­ed he had had the priv­i­lege to par­tic­i­pate in the Con­se­cra­tion of Colour Cer­e­monies of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Prison Ser­vice, as well as for the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice.

“The con­se­cra­tion of the Fire Ser­vice’s Colour (Flag) here to­day, is a fit­ting sym­bol or trib­ute to the Or­ga­ni­za­tion’s 70 years of ex­is­tence.  I ask that you do not let the sym­bol­ism of this his­toric mile­stone pass you by, as we the cit­i­zens of this coun­try count on the men and women of the Fire Ser­vice to pro­vide ef­fi­cient and ef­fec­tive pub­lic fire pro­tec­tion and emer­gency ser­vices to the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” the min­is­ter told the Fire Ser­vice of­fi­cers present.

The min­is­ter urged mem­bers of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Fire Ser­vice (TTFS), to re­mem­ber al­ways that they play an im­por­tant role in the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and pub­lic safe­ty ap­pa­ra­tus of this coun­try.

He laud­ed their will­ing­ness to go be­yond the call of du­ty, ded­i­cat­ing their lives to the con­tin­u­ous safe­ty of all cit­i­zens, es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing this time of the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic.

“We at the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty have a right to be proud of our men and women in uni­form from all our Di­vi­sions. De­spite all the crit­i­cisms and the at­tacks that are di­rect­ed at na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, we con­tin­ue to do our jobs fear­less­ly, with­out fear or favour, mal­ice or ill will, to pro­tect Trinidad and To­ba­go.  And you, the mem­bers of the Fire Ser­vice, play an im­por­tant part, es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing this time of the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic,” Min­is­ter Young said.

He added: “As we go in­to an­oth­er Dry Sea­son that will sure­ly bring the ad­di­tion­al po­ten­tial dif­fi­cul­ties with it, we count on the Fire Ser­vice to see us through those dif­fi­cul­ties.”

The Min­is­ter Young as­sured the mem­bers of the Fire Ser­vice that they had the full sup­port of the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go, which will con­tin­ue to sup­ply the TTFS with the req­ui­site tech­nol­o­gy, equip­ment, in­fra­struc­ture and oth­er re­sources so that the or­ga­ni­za­tion can car­ry out its re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to the peo­ple ef­fec­tive­ly and ef­fi­cient­ly.

At to­day’s cer­e­mo­ny, Min­is­ter Young presided over the pa­rade of two de­tach­ments of Fire Of­fi­cers, one fe­male and one male con­sist­ing of thir­ty-six of­fi­cers each.

Al­so present at the cer­e­mo­ny were Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary, Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, Mr. Gary Joseph; Act­ing Chief Fire Of­fi­cer, Mr. Mar­lon Smith; Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Mr. Gary Grif­fith; Chief of De­fence Staff, Air Com­modore Dar­ryl Daniel; Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer, Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness and Man­age­ment, Ma­jor Gen­er­al (Re­tired) Rod­ney Smart; Chap­lin of the Fire Ser­vice, Act­ing Di­vi­sion­al Fire Of­fi­cer, Mr. Earl Samp­son; and oth­er mem­bers of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Fire Ser­vice.