The planned US$1.4M fire boat which will be stationed at the Demerara Harbour will be a major boost to the Guyana Fire Service (GFS).
This was stated by the Chief Fire Officer Marlon Gentle during an interview with the Department of Public Information (DPI).
Angloco Limited, a company based in the United Kingdom, is constructing the vessel. The Fire Chief described the vessel’s construction as “monumental”. Guyana last possessed a fire boat in 1978.
Gentle pointed out that over the years there has been much development of Guyana’s waterfronts which warranted the need for the fireboat.
“It heralds the need for this type of equipment so that we can have some sort of port protection for our storage, our wharves, warehouses and so on the waterfront, and also a fireboat is also a very useful piece of equipment for shore support in terms of land base firefighting operations”, the Fire Chief said.
Gentle said that the vessel will improve the GFS’s marine firefighting and response capability as it will be able to pump in excess of 5,000 gallons of water per minute.
Gentle told DPI that the vessel, “will take somewhere between nine and ten months to complete. In the meantime, the GFS is mulling other facilities that will have to support this vessel in terms of berthing facilities and the staffing.
The fire vessel’s construction is one of the GFS’s major projects out of the 2017 National Budget.
