The fire service has bolstered its firefighting capabilities with the acquisition of three new fire tenders at $1 million a piece.
But the new appliances came with an admission by the minister for the fire brigade that its capacity was still below par.
The new fire engines, expected to be on the road from next week, were inspected by Home Affairs Minister Wilfred, Chief Fire Officer Errol Maynard and officials at the Bridgetown port on Thursday.
The tenders, ordered two years ago, are equipped with advanced technology, including turrets or “monitors” mounted on top, enabling firefighters to extinguish blazes from a distance using foam or water jets. This capability will be particularly useful for tackling fires in the Bridgetown area, according to Chief Maynard.
“Because they are new and technology-wise they are state of the art, they would allow us to function in a more efficient manner,” he told reporters during the inspection. “One [tender] will definitely be replacing the [one] at St John fire station where we lost the one in the fire. The other two will be placed in the Bridgetown area.”
Maynard also revealed that two additional specialised vehicles, designed to navigate narrow streets in densely populated areas, have been ordered and are expected to arrive early next year.
Abrahams emphasised the urgency of putting the new tenders into service as soon as possible, preferably by next week, given the current shortage of available fire appliances. “We expect that these will be commissioned by next week; the persons are coming in to train the fire service in the use of these vehicles I believe on Monday, and then as soon thereafter as we can, we will get them out,” he said.
Acknowledging the fire service’s limited capacity, Abrahams gave this assurance: “We accept that we are below capacity; we have managed through the diligence of our fire officers and their reorganisation of assets to be able to cover everything that happens in Barbados. But we’ve also been lucky, we have not had anything major happen. I can assure the public of Barbados that we are working to get to that point where we are perfectly covered.”
Last month, a fire tender was destroyed while attending to a cane fire at Locust Hall, St George, which Abrahams said resulted from a breach of protocol, according to an initial investigation. (SB)
