Two million dollar upgrade for Fire Service

TWO million dollars have been spent this year upgrading the equipment of the Barbados Fire Service (BFS).

“On the fleet upgrade and replacement, we have about spent $2 million this year. I think we have two new tankers, and over the next couple of years, it will be between seven or eight million dollars that we will be spending, so that we can have the most cutting edge of equipment,” disclosed Minister of Home Affairs and Attorney General, Adriel Brathwaite.

At the time, he was speaking moments after the end of ‘Operation: Raising the Bar’, a rescue simulation put on by the BFS in the City yesterday.

While the simulation included a water-rescue, the outing of a vehicle blaze and a vehicle rescue, the AG threw down the challenge to the BFS to include a high-rise rescue in its next simulation.

“I said to the Fire Chief that if you are going to do a drill, I would expect to see someone come down from the Treasury Building or going up the Treasury Building ,because in terms of what is happening, we are having more high-rise buildings in Barbados that will be part of our landscape of the future, so whatever is required in terms of our ability to respond to emergencies of all types, we are going to have to try to ensure that we don’t only have the equipment, but all skills,” he said.

The AG underlined the importance of having such drills, noting that these were critical life-savers.

“We have to learn from this morning’s exercise the things that we did not do properly, because based on what I could see, there were a couple areas where we needed to have better co-ordination, but that will only happen through practice.

Brathwaite also noted that a state-of-the-art teaching facility will be created at the Arch Hall station, insisting, “we not only want to teach our firemen and women, we also want to have it available to our brothers and sisters across the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States’.”