RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Af­ter years of lim­it­ed equip­ment and de­layed re­spons­es to emer­gen­cies, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Fire Ser­vice (TTFS) has re­ceived a ma­jor op­er­a­tional boost with the han­dover of six new fire ten­ders val­ued at $69 mil­lion.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar of­fi­cial­ly com­mis­sioned the fleet at the Pe­nal Fire Head­quar­ters on Clarke Road yes­ter­day, de­scrib­ing the move as a crit­i­cal step in strength­en­ing na­tion­al emer­gency re­sponse and pro­tect­ing un­der­served com­mu­ni­ties.

The fleet com­pris­es five wa­ter ten­ders and a spe­cialised heavy res­cue ve­hi­cle de­signed to re­spond to haz­ardous ma­te­r­i­al (haz­mat) in­ci­dents, road traf­fic ac­ci­dents and com­plex res­cue op­er­a­tions.

The equip­ment will be de­ployed across Pe­nal, Ma­yaro, Princes Town, Point Fortin and To­ba­go—ar­eas that have long faced chal­lenges due to lim­it­ed fire­fight­ing re­sources.

Act­ing Chief Fire Of­fi­cer Andy Hutchin­son ac­knowl­edged that the TTFS had strug­gled to meet de­mands due to in­ad­e­quate equip­ment.

“We would have strug­gled. There were times we were un­able to save lives be­cause we did not have the equip­ment re­quired,” Hutchin­son said.

He ex­plained that the new ac­qui­si­tions were guid­ed by de­tailed risk as­sess­ments, par­tic­u­lar­ly in ar­eas with in­creas­ing in­dus­tri­al ac­tiv­i­ty and traf­fic ac­ci­dents.

“Pri­or to this, we were lim­it­ed. Now we can han­dle haz­mat in­ci­dents, heavy res­cues and road traf­fic ac­ci­dents where per­sons may be trapped,” he said.

“This heavy res­cue ve­hi­cle gives us the abil­i­ty to lift over­turned ve­hi­cles, sta­bilise them and res­cue per­sons safe­ly.”

Hutchin­son added that the new fleet sig­nif­i­cant­ly en­hances the fire ser­vices’ op­er­a­tional reach and ef­fec­tive­ness, not­ing that an ad­di­tion­al wa­ter re­lay ve­hi­cle is ex­pect­ed with­in four to six weeks.

In an emo­tion­al ad­dress, Per­sad-Bisses­sar linked the ini­tia­tive to her own per­son­al ex­pe­ri­ence, re­call­ing a dev­as­tat­ing fire that de­stroyed her fam­i­ly home in the 1980s while she was abroad sit­ting law ex­ams.

“My moth­er was babysit­ting when a fire broke out, and with­in min­utes the en­tire house was con­sumed,” she said. “We lost every­thing—our mem­o­ries, our keep­sakes—but we sur­vived.”

She not­ed that at the time, no fire ser­vice ar­rived in time—not due to neg­li­gence, but be­cause of the lack of in­fra­struc­ture in rur­al com­mu­ni­ties.

“In those days, rur­al cit­i­zens bore the great­est bur­den of ne­glect,” she said. “That ex­pe­ri­ence stayed with me and shaped my promise that no com­mu­ni­ty should face that kind of aban­don­ment again.”

The Prime Min­is­ter ded­i­cat­ed the fleet to her late moth­er, Ri­ta Per­sad, de­scrib­ing her as a source of strength and in­spi­ra­tion.

“This is not sim­ply about hand­ing over ve­hi­cles. It is about whether the State pro­tects its peo­ple when their lives, homes and fu­tures are on the line,” she said.

Mean­while, Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Roger Alexan­der de­scribed the han­dover as a crit­i­cal step in strength­en­ing na­tion­al readi­ness, ac­knowl­edg­ing that fire­fight­ers had pre­vi­ous­ly been forced to op­er­ate with in­suf­fi­cient re­sources.

“When peo­ple call the fire ser­vice, it means some­thing has gone wrong—some­one is at risk. There is no room for de­lay, no room for fail­ure,” Alexan­der said. “There was noth­ing here to re­spond with. Noth­ing. We have fixed that.”

He added that the new ten­ders are ex­pect­ed to im­prove re­sponse times, ex­tend op­er­a­tional reach, and ul­ti­mate­ly save lives, while sig­nalling con­tin­ued in­vest­ment in mod­ern tech­nol­o­gy, in­clud­ing drones for search and res­cue.

Res­i­dents al­so wel­comed the de­vel­op­ment. Keisha Ram­nath of Pe­nal said the new equip­ment brings “hap­pi­ness and re­lief,” while As­tara Khan of Point Fortin de­scribed the up­grade as over­due.

“Re­sponse time is every­thing,” said Im­ran John of Ma­yaro. “If they have the right tools now, it means lives can be saved.”

Of­fi­cials said the de­ploy­ment forms part of a broad­er plan to en­sure ad­e­quate fire cov­er­age na­tion­wide, par­tic­u­lar­ly in high-risk and in­dus­tri­al com­mu­ni­ties.