The May Pen Fire Station was noticeably without a fire truck when THE STAR visited the location on Monday. We were informed that the truck had been dispatched to the scene of a fire and would be away for a long while because of the burden of responding to numerous fires. - Sheldon Williams

SHELDON WILLIAMS, Staff Reporter

The May Pen Fire Station is under-equipped and is facing a tremendous task of combating numerous fires with a single fire truck at their disposal.

Assistant Superintendent (ASP) Neville Dawkins told THE STAR that the absence of basic trucks called pumpers is of grave concern as the island is in a dry season whereby fires are likely to occur.

"Our main challenge is we are in the middle of a fire season and we have only one and a half unit.One here and half in Frankfield," ASP Dawkins said. "We've had only one unit for the longest while."

Challenging

The ASP admitted that on some occasions, the fires the May Pen unit respond to are so challenging that assistance has to be sought from St Catherine and Manchester.

"Sometimes, we have to call for assistance from Old Harbour and Mandeville," he remarked.

"In January we responded to 138 fires, In February 111 and so far in March 119."

At the time of our interview on Monday, ASP Dawkins revealed that his team had responded to six fires on the day.

Interestingly, during the interview, the ASP received a call notifying him that there was a fire in Crofts Hill in the parish but he had to divert that emergency to another station because his unit was still out on another assignment.

However, despite the shortfall in equipment, Dawkins revealed that the station's human resource is satisfactory.

"The staff is OK because we had a graduation recently to beef up the town."

Dawkins explained that the town's problems are exacerbated by non-functioning fire hydrants.

"Some hydrants don't have water.Not in every area you will find one that's working."

He identified fire-prone areas in the parish as Mcgilchrist, Colgate, Vere Plains, Osborne Store and York Town among others.