President of the Fire Service Association Keone Guy is again calling on the government to provide fire officers with the necessary tools get to the job done.
Speaking on TV6 Morning Edition, he says fire officers are working with aged and defective equipment, and it is impacting their ability to function efficiently.
00:00The vicious fire that engulfed the home of Ian Burnley three days ago could have been avoided.
00:06That's according to President of Trinidad and Tobago Fire Association, Keon Guy.
00:11Guy told the TV6 that the incident is another example of years of neglect by the powers that be.
00:17He says it is very unfortunate that a life was lost and a young man is now fatherless.
00:22But his association did warn the relevant authorities several times.
00:26What we are witnessing right now, be it, of course, that response where Mr. Burnley lost his life or the failure of an appliance.
00:35One of our airfield crash tenders at the airport, international airport in Tobago a couple of days ago.
00:42Those breakdowns are not coincidentally, they didn't coincidentally occur, right?
00:48This is definitely the consequence of inaction, the consequences of underfunding and neglect of the fire service.
00:55Guy says out of the 26 fire stations across Trinidad and Tobago, approximately 40% are without fire trucks.
01:04He further states that most of the vehicles that are currently in use are 20 to 30 years old.
01:11He says vehicle upkeep is very important and in order for that to be done, the service needs to be properly funded.
01:18The situation here, Marlon, is that it's been that underfunded that has occurred that's going on for a lengthy period of time.
01:23It didn't just affect one of our votes, it didn't just affect the purchasing of new appliances, it also affected the repairs and allocations to that vote as well.
01:32It impacted the allocations towards upgrades and new investments that we would like to do at our engineering department that we have.
01:41The association president says fire officers are sometimes demotivated because of the lack of basic tools to do their job and they are also concerned about their safety.
01:51They can no longer rely and count that if I'm to pitch a lot and ascend it, that this lot is not going to collapse on me, right?
01:59That if I am to ascend one of the very steep hills in Maraval or Lavantil or even negotiating the very dangerous curves on the north coast,
02:09that this truck is not going to run over on the side.
02:13So the officers don't have confidence in the equipment that they are using, certainly does put and has put our lives at risk.
02:20He says the association is not here to criticize the government past or present,
02:25but rather to work with the government as fire safety professionals to ensure the citizens of TNT are safe.
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