Guyanese Online

Fire destroyed 80% of the Brickdam Police Station  on October 2, 2021

It is not just the Fire Service and by extension the government which is at issue, but also the attitude of the professionals who have charge of public assets, as well as the population at large. Georgetown’s huge disadvantage is that until very recent times it was predominantly a wooden city. The Brickdam Police Station, an attractive historical building was also of wood, so what emergency fire arrangements were in place should a disaster happen? It did have extinguishers which it seems were used, but possibly at a stage when it was already too late to have any effect.

One presumes there was a fire alarm, but where were the smoke alarms? Where were the sprinkler systems which are now customary for public buildings in other jurisdictions? And as our leader on Monday asked, where were the fire hoses and sand buckets? Were there enough fire extinguishers to cope with a major inferno sited within easy reach of all important locations?  And were there any emergency response or salvage plans in existence? Where the latter is concerned, clearly not, since the worst loss was that of documentation. Since none of it was digitised one must presume it was kept in non-fireproof filing cabinets. Surely, one would have thought, at the very least it is just common sense to have backup for such critical documents.

As for emergency response plans, every state and local government institution should have them, in addition to all private work locations. What to do in a fire should be posted on walls, and wherever possible there should be regular fire drills too. That particularly applies in the case of schools; panicky children are the last thing one wants in the event of a fire. They should be trained to evacuate a building in a disciplined and orderly way. Needless to say this country does not lack examples of schools burning down, one quite recently.

The government has made it quite clear that money has been poured into the Fire Service in recent times so it is properly equipped to perform its function. One does wonder, however, whether the service has had new developments in mind when upgrading its equipment. The city is growing upwards, so to speak, and it can only be speculated whether the GFS would be in a position to rescue citizens from the top floor of one of our higher buildings, for example, where they were prevented from escaping down the stairs past middle floors engulfed in flames.

Sometimes it appears as if simple common sense is what is at issue.  Why, for example, was the man who was later charged with arson of the Brickdam station allegedly given back his lighter by a policeman? Haven’t we had enough prisons set on fire by inmates at Mazaruni, Lusignan and above all Camp Street, not to have learnt a few lessons about the dangers when detainees are involved? It might be noted en passant that an anonymous writer to this newspaper who once worked for the GPF and is now in the US said that there were fire retardant beds, mattresses and pillows being used in correctional facilities all over the world, so why couldn’t this be done in Guyana? A piece of sponge from a cell mattress which was then attached to a wire was allegedly used to start the fire.

And then there is the matter of the fire hydrants more especially those in Hadfield Street. The GWI under the coalition government had announced it had put a number of city hydrants back in working order. Perhaps the powers that be at the GFS didn’t read the release, because in a Facebook post Attorney Nigel Hughes said that for an hour-and-a-half he and his wife informed law enforcement officials and some government officials that the hydrant in front of their office was functioning. The response he received was that it was not working, and blue paint on it indicated such. Later, he said, the residents of Werk-en-Rust managed to open it and water came “pouring out”.

It might be the case too that the legislation in respect of fire prevention is out of date, and that the ever busy AG might like to look at it. One suspects that whatever is on the statute books is in any case ignored by the private sector, something which needs addressing. The city’s first fire regulations date back to 1803, when two engineers with two assistants each were appointed to manage two fire engines, which were manual. Every householder had to provide two leather buckets which were to be lent to the engineers when asked. The buckets had to be checked twice a year and the engines once a month. The engineers were to be assisted at a fire by twenty members of the coloured militia.

Following a disastrous fire in 1864, some very stringent laws were introduced, including one which required that only hardwood be used for external construction, and not American clapboard.

While one can exhort private citizens to check their electrical outlets and wiring, the latter of which tends to deteriorate in the humid tropics faster than it would in a temperate zone, it should be absolutely compulsory for public buildings to be subject to regular inspection. We simply cannot afford the loss of property and assets that is so common in what is supposedly this modern age.

But above all else, will the authorities do something to upgrade the training of the members of the Guyana Fire Service. All our safety depends on it.