The capability of the Guyana Fire Service (GFS) was boosted on Tuesday when it received an airport firefighting truck, a water bowser, two water tenders and two ambulances.
Minister of Home Affairs Robeson Benn on Tuesday handed over the appliances to Fire Chief Gregory Wickham at a ceremony at the Ministry’s Secretariat.
According to a Ministry of Home Affairs press release, the Government of Guyana expended over $178.6 million for the purchases of four of the appliances, while Angloco Limited in the United Kingdom, the supplier of the appliances, donated two water tenders valued $28 million.
The airport firefighting and rescue truck will be attached to the Eugene F. Correia International Airport.
“This new one here is intended to bring the Eugene F. Correia International Airport to category four (4) for the aerodrome firefighting. The appliance we have had there has fallen behind standards which are necessary,” Benn was quoted as saying.
He further noted that the Eugene F. Correia International Airport is “perhaps the busiest airport in Guyana and perhaps in the Caribbean, not only for internal flights in the Caribbean, so the frequency of flights here is extremely high. And we need to have the readiness, the capability and the engagement in respect to responding to questions of the possibility of an accident involving fire and rescue’’.
The release said Wickham indicated that the ambulances will be used to expand the Emergency Medical Services to Regions Three and Five.
He also said so far the year EMTs have delivered 12 babies.
