EDITORIAL: Fire safety paramount at Christmas

Chief Fire Officer, Errol Maynard, in delivering his Fire Safety Message during last year’s Christmas period, commended Barbadians on the whole, for the attitude shown towards fire safety.

 

“Many of you have worked with us and have put the necessary mechanisms in place to make your homes, businesses and workplaces safer for your families, staff and customers. The efforts you have made show that as a nation we are maturing,” Maynard said in his message.

 

He however added, “Although there has been a significant reduction in the number of calls to incidents, we are still not comfortable with the numbers.”

 

Maynard went on to state from January 1 to November 30, 2014, the Barbados Fire Service responded to 15 incidents at commercial buildings; 64 electrical; 1 382 grass; 56 motor vehicles; 18 other structural; 93 private dwelling (houses); 349 rubbish and 133 cane fires.

 

As of November 30, 2015, he said the Fire Service responded to 20 incidents at commercial buildings; 39 electrical; 837 grass; 37 motor vehicles; 20 other structural; 75 private dwelling (houses); 338 rubbish and 59 cane fires. Overall, he indicated, the department responded to 2 098 incidents up to the end of November 2015, compared to 2 777 for 2014. 

 

He expressed his belief that the reduction was not only as a result of the Fire Service “being out there, being more vigilant and executing a more focused education programme”, but he also stated his belief that it was as a result of the public listening to the key messages dished out by the Fire Service and accepting individual responsibility as good citizens of Barbados.

 

While focus has to be placed on fires as a whole, we all know that news of a fire breaking out at a private dwelling at times hits us hard, since we know full well that allocations must be made for householders to find new accommodation and this is a trying task at times. Indeed, at Christmas time, homeowners have to exercise extra care as electrical sockets are under great pressure to keep up with our many Christmas activities. Numerous persons like to light up their houses for Christmas as well and that is why we have to pay even greater attention to fire safety messages.

 

Indeed, it must be heart wrenching to witness your home on fire and gut wrenching to say the least, after you realise that hardly anything from the home could have been saved. This scenario has played out too many times in Barbados. During the Christmas period, there were a few house fires and reports of householders losing everything to the fire and this was really not a good finish to the year 2015.

 

Going forward, this year, we need to continue the trend which would lead to a downward spiral in the number of house fires taking place, especially so at this time of year. As such, homeowners and householders should install smoke detectors in their homes and check to see that these devices are in good working condition, if they have already installed them. Homeowners should also refrain from overloading electrical circuits and last but not least, go over all fire prevention tips with all in the household.