Brickdam Police Station fire: President Ali blasts Fire Service for “lackadaisical approach”

President Dr Irfaan Ali has described the Guyana Fire Service’s (GFS’s) response to the Brickdam Police Station fire as “poor at its best”, and publicly blazed the entire GFS, citing that ‘things’ will have to be shaken up.
The Brickdam Police Station went up in flames on Saturday at around 11:00h, and the fire raged on for well over three hours as the entire three-storey structure, along with other buildings, besides vehicles, was destroyed. This has crippled the operations of the largest Policing Division in the country.

The Fire Service, however, had been less that admirable in its response, and some have even described the response as mediocre.
The Brickdam Police Station’s operations have temporarily been shifted to the nearby campus of the St Stanislaus College. On Sunday morning, President Ali visited the temporary site, as well as assed the situation at the block that previously housed the Station. The President was on his way to the airport to attend the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in Barbados when he made the stop.

“This is an extremely difficult situation for the Guyana Police Force, especially the ranks at Brickdam Police Station,” he said. “This is a grave loss of an asset to the Police Force and to the people of our country,” he commented.
Ali expressed gratitude to the leadership of the Force and the Ministry of Home Affairs for their efficiency in setting up temporary operations for the continuation of the services the Brickdam Police Station offers.
Additionally, he praised the efforts of all the ranks who came out to help save whatever could be saved from the burning buildings.
“To say I’m not bothered would not be a true reflection of how I’m thinking. Bothered because this is not the first public asset we have lost. Now the investigation into this fire will go on, and we will hear about the results,” Ali said.

Lackadaisical approach
Over the years, the Guyana Fire Service’s response to fires has been heavily criticised. Fire tenders often arrive on the scene without water and very late, and when they do arrive early, they have issues sourcing water. Such incidents are not isolated to one district; rather, they are widespread across the country.
Government has been investing in the Fire Service to bolster its response, but Saturday’s fire has painted a picture of sheer chaos within the GFS.
“We have been making tremendous investments in last year in the Fire Service, and I’ve made it very clear: In this country, people will have to be held accountable for their actions. We cannot be making investment in state apparatus and state institutions and do not get the results from those investments. The response (of) the Fire Service was poor at its best yesterday.
“As President, I hope the Fire Service can acknowledge this, because if you’ve got acknowledge the problem, you can deal with it. It upsets me, because Minister (Robeson) Benn will tell you the type of investment we’re making,” an angry President Ali related.
The President castigated the top brass of the GFS for its state of readiness when it came to fighting the fire at Brickdam Police Station. Indirectly referring to the mode of dress of Fire Chief Kalamodeen Edoo, who turned up on the scene in civilian clothing, President Ali said the state cannot be providing the officers with safety gear and then sit back and watch them arriving on scene without the gear.
“It means that you are not in any state of readiness to respond to an emergency. It means, from a personal level, you’re not taking the job that you’re entrusted to do with the level of seriousness that is necessary. When you’re part of an emergency service, you’re entrusted with certain responsibilities,” he said.
He pointed to the fact that the Fire Service’s headquarters are located just a stone’s throw away from the Brickdam Police Station, and yet there were issues with their response.
“We spent hundreds of millions of dollars, and to put it crudely, you can’t respond to events in your backyard. And the response is not about asset, you know; the response is about attitude, it’s about commitment, it’s about discipline, it’s about professionalism, it’s about being in a state of readiness,” the President said.
He expressed that Government cannot continue to function if these issues are not addressed, and he issued a sound warning to all those in the public service as well as in the Forces. Ali said if they do not want to perform public service, then they should “do the honourable thing”.

He added that inefficiency in the public service will have to be weeded out.
Reverting to the Fire Service’s failures, the President said that, during the fire, several businesses called and offered support to help contain the blaze, but the Fire Service was unable to capitalise on that.
“I am publicly putting the Fire Service on warning: This cannot, and will not, be tolerated… One of the businessmen has his entire pool and a well that flows continuously, and the Fire Service was not in a position to make use of that offer. This lackadaisical approach, inefficient approach and indifferent approach, cannot continue. No, it cannot continue,” he informed.
Home Affairs Minister Robeson Benn has since been directed to launch an investigation into the GFS’s response to the fire, as well as look into more permanent solutions to house the operations of the Brickdam Police Station.
“I’ve asked them to look at containerised office and also reconfiguration of containers into office-type facility to support their operation. At the same time, I want to assure the public that we have heard them also, and we’re going to examine the response from the Fire Service in its totality. I’ve expressed my own views on the response based on factual positioning of what was happening and based on the type of calls I received to support that they were unable to take because of a state of readiness,” he said.
President Ali also directed the head of the Diaspora Unit to compile a list of names of retired Fire Chiefs in the diaspora in an effort to bring their expertise to the GFS. He noted that the move is more aimed at professionalising the Fire Service so that it can be more efficient.
As recently as in last August, the Fire Service hosted operation “Get Ready” on Robb Street, Georgetown, as it tested the ability of 60 of its ranks to respond to major fires. As part of the exercise, several fire trucks, the high ladder truck, and the fire boat – which was sending water from the Demerara River at the John Fernandes Wharf – were operationalised.
Additionally, all fire hydrants in the city were checked.
The Guyana Police Force has since said that the fire was started by a prisoner housed in the Brickdam lockups.