Fire association head calls for more fire tenders after child, 2, burns to death in Morvant home

PRESIDENT of the Fire Service Association Leo Ramkissoon said the fact that the Morvant Fire Station and others are without appliances is very concerning.

The concerns come a day after two-year-old Kimani Douglas was found dead in his family’s home on Petunia Avenue, off Coconut Drive on Monday afternoon after the house was gutted by fire. Fire officers at the Morvant Fire Station received the distress call at about 12.30 pm but could not respond as there were no appliances assigned to the station.

Ramkissoon in a telephone interview with Newsday said there is no way to be assured that if the fire station had a fire tender, then Kimani would have been saved. He said Morvant has been without an appliance for months now, and for the past few years the fire station has had to be without one for months at a time because of maintenance issues.

“Morvant is one of the stations that is not prioritised.

"It is a matter of geographic coverage. You have a station in San Juan and you have the headquarters on Wrightson Road. Based on the history of calls, they would prefer to have an appliance at San Juan and at the headquarters to cover Morvant Station's district.”

Belmont Fire Station is also one of the fire stations used to cover the Morvant area, but it too is without an appliance, Ramkissoon said.

Besides Belmont and Morvant, Woodbrook and Tunupuna fire stations are also without tenders. Ramkissoon said, of the 25 fire stations in the country, roughly eight temporarily have no appliances, owing to maintenance, while acting Chief Fire Officer Andy Hutchinson said some are permanently without an appliance.

He said that eight appliances are out of commission is a matter of life and death when it comes to emergency responses.

“One station short, one station unable to respond, is unacceptable. So to have six stations without appliances in the Northern Division can cost people their lives. There are worse things, but that is not good at all.

“I cannot say to you that the child who perished, sadly, could not have been saved. I don’t know. I don’t know if Morvant had an appliance and would have gotten there three-five minutes faster than San Juan, whether that could have saved the child’s life, I don't know. But these are questions we have to ask ourselves."

He spoke of two recent incidents when fire officers had to be innovative because they had no fire appliances. One occasion was in Sangre Grande, where a fire officer’s personal vehicle was used to transport fire hoses. The other took place in Rio Claro, where fire officers responded to a fire on foot and used a garden hose with a pressure washer until another station responded.

Stations without tenders add strain to stations with them, he said, as Arima must now service the area from Tunapuna to Sangre Grande, as neither of those stations has a tender. This is “very concerning” and more needs to be done in the interest of the people.

In 2019, after a walk from the Morvant Fire Station to the San Juan Fire Station to highlight the concerns of fire officers, Ramkissoonsaid there were 11 stations without fire tenders.

Hutchinson said after an appliance is tendered for, the process usually takes 18-24 months before it is in the country.

On Morvant, he could not say how long the station has been without a vehicle but was aware that seven stations – Santa Cruz, Woodbrook, Chagauramas, Belmont, Morvant, Penal and Tunapuna – have no appliances.

He said for many of those vehicles, the service time has expired and the cost of maintaining them has increased. The engineering department, he said, recently received parts that were ordered to repair some of the tenders that are now down. Among them are two that got into accidents soon after they were bought.

“The vehicle we have for Chaguaramas is repairable. Woodbrook is on the books to purchase, Belmont appliance is down for minor repairs. Morvant can be replaced. Santa Cruz can be replaced as well and Tunapuna is down for minor repairs, and Penal is just a leaking tank.”

He said there are approvals for some vehicles which have to be tendered for but those are for Point Fortin Fire Station and Piarco Airport. Approvals for other appliances were cancelled and the process restarted, Hutchinson said.