Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

A small fire broke out on the ve­ran­dah of the Na­tion­al Li­brary Build­ing in Port-of-Spain around 9 pm on Fri­day, prompt­ing an emer­gency re­sponse from staff and fire of­fi­cials.

Deb­bie Good­man, Man­ag­er of Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions at the Na­tion­al Li­brary and In­for­ma­tion Sys­tem Au­thor­i­ty (NALIS), said the fire was quick­ly de­tect­ed, and emer­gency pro­to­cols were im­me­di­ate­ly ac­ti­vat­ed.

“Li­brary staff and se­cu­ri­ty prompt­ly ini­ti­at­ed emer­gency pro­to­cols. The Fire Ser­vice re­spond­ed swift­ly, ex­tin­guish­ing the fire,” she said in a state­ment.

The fire was con­tained to the ex­ter­nal area and did not spread in­side the build­ing. There was no dam­age to li­brary col­lec­tions, fur­ni­ture, or equip­ment, Good­man said.

She added that a full in­ves­ti­ga­tion will be car­ried out by the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties to de­ter­mine the cause of the in­ci­dent.