A FIRE which reportedly originated from one of the extractor fans in the kitchen of the Fogarty’s building on Friday was quickly extinguished by members of the Guyana Fire Service.
The fire service has since launched an investigation into the incident. The fire service around 09:30hrs received several reports about smoke emanating from the building, and immediately, the firefighters sprang into action. Fire Chief Marlon Gentle said as part of the fire service’s efforts to control the spread of the blaze, several fire service vehicles were deployed, including the

recently commissioned $292M fire boat.  “This area is one of the high-risk areas in the city of Georgetown that we know we have a very robust fire response whenever a call is made, regardless of what the situation is, we have done so and we have been able to mitigate whatever could have been a more frightening situation at this building,” he said, adding: “If I might add, historically this area was one of the areas that witnessed one of the most devastating fires in Georgetown in 1945; the great fire where this entire ward was wiped out, so I’m glad we do not have a repeat of that today.”

Gentle stated that although it took the fire service just eight minutes to arrive at the scene, he believes that the congestion in the area poses a serious threat to emergency response.
The fire chief noted that currently talks are being held with the Minister of Home Affairs and several other key personnel to address this issue.
“I must say that the ranks who responded here were prompt; we had some setbacks, especially our movement of our equipment from the Central Fire Station area. We took approximately eight minutes to clear up there because of congestion traffic and so on. This is something we have to look at and maybe look at our strategies with responding to these business areas… we realise the current state is impedance to emergency movement, not only fire but ambulances and everything else,” said Gentle.