–new assets include modern fire truck for Ogle Airport

IN a bid to improve the efficiency of the Guyana Fire Service (GFS), the government has expended $178 million on four new pieces of equipment.
The new additions to the fire service’s pool of resources are a $146.3 million airport crash-rescue tender; a $12.7 million bowser water tanker, and two ambulances valuing collectively $19.5 million.

The GFS on Tuesday also received two new fire tenders worth $28 million. Those tenders were donated to the government by a British firefighting & rescue vehicles manufacturing company, Angloco.
Minister of Home Affairs, Robeson Benn, said that those new pieces of equipment are necessary to boost the overall performance of the fire service.

He said that the airport crash-rescue tender, in particular, will incrementally increase the fire service’s capability to prevent potential airport disasters from occurring.
The modern tender will be stationed at the Eugene F. Correia International Airport, at Ogle on the East Coast of Demerara, and will boost the airport’s emergency preparedness to Category Four.

Minister Benn said that based on the high traffic to and from the airport, this type of equipment is necessary for the eventuality of an emergency.

“The Eugene F. Correia Airport is perhaps the busiest airport in Guyana, not only for internal flights to our mining and forestry and other areas and tourism areas, but also in respect of regional flights in the Caribbean… so the frequency of flights here is reasonably high and we need to have the readiness, the capability in respect to responding to questions of the possibility of an incident involving fire and or rescue at ogle,” Minister Benn related.

The tender is specifically designed to function in aircraft firefighting, and since it could be operated manually and mechanically, it allows for a single operator at any one time. The firefighting machine has the capacity to emit foam and water.

Meanwhile, Fire Chief (ag), Gregory Wickham described the sizeable investment as “critically needed,” noting that Guyanese could expect to see continued and boosted efficiency by the fire service to cater to specific needs that might arise.

“We want to offer a service to this nation that is of exceptional quality and that is what we are called to do; and so we are better prepared with these appliances to offer those services,” he said.

Addressing the placement of the other pieces of equipment, Wickham said that the bowser fire tender will be used around central Georgetown, while one of the two tenders will be stationed at the Diamond Fire Station, and the other will be utilised by various stations that require a support vehicle.

“They [the equipment] will benefit us greatly because firefighting is a technique that depends strongly on the equipment, to execute. So, with these appliances coming on board we would be able to boost our work and perform better,” Wickham said.

He said too that the ambulances will be stationed in Regions Three and Five, where the GFS currently provides assistance to Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs).

“I know the people of Guyana depend strongly on us for fire safety, fire prevention, and fire protection and even in the emergency care by the response that our ambulances would have been doing over the years. I was informed that for this year only, we would have delivered 12 babies and so the ambulances will lend more support to us offering those types of services to those persons who are in need or [are] in medical distress,” Wickham related.