Expressing disappointment in the Guyana Fire Service’s (GFS) “poor at best” response to the fire which ravaged the Brickdam Police Station on Saturday, President Irfaan Ali yesterday blasted firefighters and warned that their lax approach will not be tolerated.
“The response of the fire service was poor, at its best, yesterday, and as President, I hope that the fire service can acknowledge this because if you can’t acknowledge the problem, you can’t deal with it,” the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Services said following a visit to the scene.
The fire started shortly after 11 am in the upper flat of an eastern building in the compound, according to Commissioner of Police Nigel Hoppie. About two hours later, nearly 80% of the decades-old structures in the compound were destroyed.
Ali said that with the fire occurring a stone’s throw away from the GPF’s main station at Stabroek, it was appalling to see the response from firefighters.
“This is less than three minutes walk to a main fire station. We cannot continue as a country and as a people to not address these issues. We can’t continue to make investments and not have the return on the investments. Whether it is in the public service, in the hospitals, the inefficiency has to be weeded out. If you don’t want to perform public service then do the honourable thing, don’t take a job in the fire department and believe it is a part-time job. Don’t take the government assets, your safety gear, and leave it home and you are an emergency worker,” he emphasied.
Pointing to the “hundreds of millions of dollars” spent on the Fire Service over the years, Ali said the GFS should be ashamed of its response. “To put it crudely, you can’t even respond to an event in your backyard. And the response is not about assets you know, the response is about attitude and commitment and discipline and professionalism and it is about being in a state of readiness. Look how quickly the police responded to a challenge…I am publicly putting the Fire Service on warning, this cannot and will not be tolerated,” he stressed.
The President said that from initial reports firefighters were not prepared and many turned up at the scene without appropriate protective gear. He said that he personally received reports on the response from residents and business persons on the scene and living in the area and those reports were not good.
“We can’t provide you with basic things and you not use them or leave them at home. It means you are not prepared. It means that from a personal level you are not taking the job you are entrusted to do with a level of seriousness. When you are part of an emergency service, you are entrusted with a level of responsibility,” he said.
According to Ali, firefighters were offered water from the well of a private citizen but they did not have the capacity to take up the offer and it showed the incompetence of firefighters.
Lackadaisical
“Many business persons around the area called. They called me directly during the course of the fire, offering different support. One man had a well and the fire service was not in a position to make use of that offer. This lackadaisical approach, inefficient approach and indifferent approach cannot continue. No! It cannot continue,” he declared.
“We have been making tremendous investment in the last year in the fire service and I have made this very clear. In this country, people would have to be held accountable for their actions. We can’t be making investments in state apparatus and state institutions and do not get the returns from those investments,” he added.
Attorney Nigel Hughes also lamented on the GFS’s preparedness and said that he and his wife told fire personnel, including senior officers that the hydrant in front of his office is operable but they denied this.
However, public-spirited citizens opened the hydrant and water poured out.
“For an hour and a half while the fire at Brickdam Police Station raged, my wife and I informed the police, the fire service and some government officials that the fire hydrant in front of our office was in working order. The fire service including senior fire officers pointed to the blue paint on the hydrant and informed me in no uncertain terms that it was not working,” Hughes said.
“The good and faithful people of Werk-en-Rust deployed their own resources, found their equipment and then came the water pouring out of the non-working fire hydrant. By this time both office buildings had caught afire and were extinguished by the bucket brigade consisting solely of the good and faithful residents of Werk-en-Rust and those friends and clients who left their homes to help,” he added.
Ali said that the Minister of Home Affairs Robeson Benn has been asked “to put together a team to investigate the response to this fire” which he will then act on when completed.
Meanwhile, Guyana will also tap into diaspora support, as Ali informed that he has asked the Head of Diaspora Affairs to compile a list of all Guyanese that have headed fire stations overseas and are willing to give back to the country of their birth, “so we can bring those expertise home to infuse a level of professionalism” as “this is about professionalism too”.
‘Get Ready’
In late August, the GFS had conducted Exercise ‘Get Ready’ where it showcased its ability. A press release had said the exercise was also aimed at testing and ensuring the effectiveness of both trainee and regular firefighters in the event of a major fire in a commercial area.
“The effort is to test both the readiness and functionality of equipment…also the engagement of the crews and the management,” Benn said had stated.
The Exercise saw a total of 86 personnel including nine Officers, two Sub Officers, eight Section Leaders, 11 Leading Firemen and Women and 56 Firefighters making use of specialized equipment which included one Fire Boat, one Hydraulic Platform, one Hose Layer and six Water Tenders which conveyed water from the river at John Fernandes Wharf to Wellington and Robb streets, Georgetown, covering approximately 1.5 kilometers in distance.
An ambulance and Emergency Medical Technicians were also on standby at the scene, the release said.
It is unclear why the specialized equipment was not utilized on Saturday.
