Fire Officers Outline Hinderances That Affect Their Performance
Basseterre, St. Kitts and Nevis, January 31, 2023(ZIZ News)–Fire officers face a number of hinderances while trying to perform their duties on a regular basis.
That’s according to Fire Sub-Station Officer, Timothy Martin during his appearance on ZIZ radio’s programme “Fire Talk” on Tuesday.
One of the obstacles mentioned included persons not responding the sirens of emergency vehicles while driving.
Martin asked that persons move to the left when they hear an emergency vehicle so that they can get to a scene quickly.
“When we look at traffic movement or even traffic adhering to the sirens, we find that persons they tend to not adhere to the siren and we want to admonish the people of the federation to whenever you hear a siren it doesn’t even have to be fire siren whether it be police, ambulance we’re asking persons to pull over to your left and allow the emergency vehicles to pass”, said Martin.
He continued, “Sometimes too, persons tend to race with the emergency vehicles if the emergency vehicle is behind them, you see them trying to speed off to stay ahead of the vehicle. We’re asking persons to desist from such practice.”
He also spoke of persons parking on small roads noting that it blocks their fire appliance from reaching a scene.
“Our fire appliance is a very wide appliance and when you have persons parking on either side of the road, persons want to park close to where they live, right in front of their gate. But then we have to be mindful that, hey, suppose there the fire in your neighborhood, then how would that affect the fire appliance from getting to, whether it be your neighbor’s house, your house, etc.”
Another hinderance mentioned was persons parking on fire hydrants. Martin explained that this significantly affects the Fire and Rescue services when performing their duties.
“Now the fire hydrants are an essential means for us to get additional water supply. So, our trucks would come fully equipped with water, however, that water supply that is in the truck can be depleted within a matter of minutes. So, we as fire services, we rely on the fire hydrants to get water and if persons are parking on these fire hydrants, then it makes our job more difficult. We either have to then go a little bit further in order for us to find an available hydrant in for us to connect.”
He added that the hydrants are painted yellow with the letters FH, FC or FS, so persons should be mindful of that when parking.
Another problem mentioned were prank calls, Martin said though these calls are on the decline they still do occur and it affects the job of the fire officers.