The Fire Department adjusted its fire response procedures following a fire that destroyed a wooden home in Glanvilles on September 21.
The fire truck from All Saints Fire Station that responded to the blaze reportedly had a capacity of fewer than 400 gallons.
The homeowner said it was devastating to watch her home burn when firefighters left the scene to refill the truck after it ran out of water while they battled the blaze.
“It is not ideal, the size of the trucks, the capacity that they carry”, Fire Chief Elvis Weaver said at a press conference on Friday. He explained that when the trucks were purchased, “it was the best, I believe at the time that the government could have done.”
“There was some mix-up, I must say, with the fire in Glanvilles because we have a truck at St. John’s that carries at least 2500 gallons of water”, Weaver said.
He said St. John’s Fire Station was called and “they should have responded to backup All Saints but it took them a while.
The Fire Chief said since the incident, new procedures were established to prevent a similar occurrence.
“We just had a meeting on Tuesday, we have put things in place that whenever there’s a fire in Johnson’s Point or All Saints that St. John’s will be responding right away, too, with them, just in case that they need the backup”, the Fire Chief revealed.
“Ideally, we would love to have trucks that carry at least 1000 gallons of water and we are working with the government to try and acquire those”, he added.
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Base on the findings from our internal investigation, we found the fire service was complicit and we have adopted the following
1 We would like to apologize to the home owner for not doing our best to save her property.
2 We will pay restitution in the amount of such and such foe our negligence….
3 We have enacted new procedures in reference to fire response.
It’s long overdue for there to be a fire station in the south and east of the island. In the meantime they can have one of the large trucks stationed at the main police station in those two areas. There is too much traffic on the roads to expect those large trucks to reach in time coming from St John’s.
Again, and again, yet again!
This is not my ‘original’ idea(John French II can be credited for it).
Disband the ABDF – Defense Force in its present form…
(a)… reassign its personnel to an upgraded Coast Guard with proper equipment, training and funding.
(b)…reassign some of personnel to the Fire Department, with proper updated equipment!
(c)…use some of the ABDF budget, to build and stock fire stations in the rural areas with modern equipments fit for, a #Powerhouse Nation!
Let me guess? Waiting on “Buford” style training, powered by the PROC!
There should be multiple fire hydrants in every village.That should be a priority now.Then again if persons cannot get water to shower.Where would they get water for those fire hydrants.
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