00:00In this video taken from inside the TDPS admin building, which was subsequently posted to Facebook this morning,
00:07a fire appliance is visible, parked on Sackville Street, and fire officers can be seen outside on the pavement,
00:15engaged in conversation with a group of persons.
00:18According to the Facebook post, electricity went out at the building, following which the fire alarm sounded twice.
00:26However, the author claims that as civilians and staff were attempting to make their way to the muster point,
00:32they were all prevented from leaving and were locked inside the building.
00:38TV6 News contacted the president of the Fire Service Association,
00:42who revealed that it has been close to two years that the fire alarm system at the TDPS admin building
00:49has been defective.
00:51I think the administration is well aware, and the police administration, that is, that the alarm is faulty,
00:57and will receive calls on a weekly basis at all hours of the day and the night of a fire
01:05at that building.
01:06So far, it has proved to be 100% false to this point.
01:12When the officers arrived, they themselves were not prevented from entering the building and carrying out their searches
01:19and inspecting the fire alarm control panel.
01:22However, what is troubling is that they did receive reports from occupants within the building
01:27that during the time when the alarm was being activated,
01:32that they were prevented from exiting the building.
01:36And as president of the Fire Service Association, I would like to see that.
01:40If that did indeed occur, that is very troubling to us.
01:44And as a practice, we would not want to encourage at all whatsoever.
01:49The FSA president is warning of the risks of assuming that any alarm is not a genuine hazard.
01:56If we continue to allow false alarm after false alarm to go off,
02:02it will result in what probably contributed to that instruction today.
02:07And that is complacency, complacency now sets in,
02:11and police tend to treat every activation of the alarm as a false alarm.
02:18We would want to, again, discourage that type of practice and ensure and make a recommendation rather
02:24that the administration, the police service administration moves to repair that system forthwith.
02:33It puts a strain on the fire service and our resources, our limited resources that we have,
02:38and it also desensitizes persons, that even when a fire actually occurs,
02:45they will then be less likely to respond any manner that they may have been trained to do so.
02:51He's recommending that all institutions equip their staff with fire safety and emergency response training.
02:58So recommendation is to have that alarm replaced immediately,
03:03as well as if possibly, if indeed an assistant commissioner gave that instruction,
03:08that assistant commissioner ought to be exposed to some evacuation procedures training
03:13to ensure that such an instruction is never given in the future.
03:19Renasa Kutain, TV6 News.
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