TWO weeks after he was sent on leave following the devastating fire at the Brickdam Police Station, Chief Fire Officer of the Guyana Fire Service (GFS), Kamaladeen Edoo, is back on the job.
The Fire Chief was sent on leave on October 5, shortly after President Dr. Irfaan Ali gave the GFS a failing grade for its performance at the October 2 fire.

President Ali, during a visit to St. Stanislaus College where the operations of the station are being temporarily housed, described the fire service’s response as “poor, at its best.”

He had noted that a lot more could have been done by the fire service to control the blaze and potentially prevent the destruction of several sections of the police station. Over 80 per cent of the station was destroyed in the blaze.

The Brickdam Police Station is the headquarters for the Guyana Police Force’s Regional Police Division 4 ‘A’ and housed the office of the regional commander. Years of police records and vehicles valued millions of dollars were badly damaged or destroyed.

The devastating fire, which reportedly started in the eastern section of the compound at 11:06 hrs, destroyed the Property Room, Enquiries Office, Traffic Department, and Officers’ Mess Hall.

The fire chief, in confirming his return on Wednesday, said that he was initially sent on three weeks leave.

He told the Guyana Chronicle that he had been sent on three weeks’ vacation leave but received a call informing him that he should resume his duties.

“They sent me on vacation leave. It was expected to be three weeks but then they called me out back after two weeks,” said Edoo.

Officials from the Ministry of Home Affairs had been tight-lipped on the length of Edoo’s leave and did not say whether he would have returned to his post as the head of the GFS.

The fire chief stated that he plans to continue working assiduously to ensure that the services provided by the GFS continues to improve. He noted that the GFS so far for 2021 has seen a 43 per cent decrease in fire calls when compared with the same period in 2020.

Edoo told this publication that, now that he has returned to his post, he plans to implement new systems and improve the existing system so as to promote the proper utilisation of resources provided to the GFS by government.

During the Brickdam Station fire, the service was censured for its under-utilisation of equipment and the PPE, which many said hindered the efficiency of fire-fighters on the ground.