Firefighters sound alarm over crash trauma

With the Jamaica Fire Brigade (JFB) reporting a 41 per cent increase in emergency calls to motor vehicle crashes last year, Commissioner Stewart Beckford is seeking to ramp up the brigade’s operational response to save more lives from serious injury and death.

Firefighters were summoned to 1,037 crash scenes in 2021 compared to 737 calls received the previous year.

The concerns of the brigade are corroborated by grim statistics by the Road Safety Unit showing 129 crash fatalities up to April 13, representing an eight per cent spike in deaths.

Fatal crashes have also risen by five per cent year-on-year.

There has also been a rash of emergencies related to motor vehicle fires, with 346 reported i n 2021, three fewer than the number recorded in 2020.

“This, for us, is alarming, because it does consume a lot of our resources,” Beckford said in a Gleaner interview, adding that firefighters have been weighed down by the trauma of gruesome death scenes. Some have been scarred by memories of having to remove decapitated bodies from vehicles.

Beckford has cautioned motorists not to treat roadways like racetracks, noting that the majority of collisions are caused by speeding and the concomitant loss of control.

WHOLE NEW BALLGAME

With the rising use of electric and hybrid vehicles on Jamaica’s roadways, Beckford said that the brigade has undergone training in the management of fires and accidents involving lithium-ion battery-powered vehicles.

Through its partnership with ATL Automotive Group, 60 of its members recently completed a two-week training programme for such incidents.

“This is a whole new ballgame - a new set of techniques and skill sets that will have to be applied in fighting a car fire that may involve an electric vehicle [and] to extricate persons who may be trapped in these vehicles,” the commissioner said.

Emergency medical services, including pre-hospital care from six of the island’s fire stations, will also be reinforced to tackle the high volume of roadway fatalities.

Last year, 65 per cent of the overall 5,520 runs made by the EMS personnel was in response to road fatalities.

Five new locations, said Beckford, will be established within a year, including two for St Ann because of its growing population and development, to buttress emergency services at the St Ann’s Bay Hospital.

Another three will be erected at fire stations currently under construction in Montego Bay, St James; Port Maria, St Mary; and Yallahs, St Thomas.

“We are trying to be proactive so that we can have the necessary resources to respond to the needs as they arise,” said Beckford.

Drones, infrared cameras

The fire brigade has commenced the procurement of drones and infrared cameras, with a drone programme scheduled for roll-out before year end, said Beckford.

“A lot of the times when we have bush fires in the hills of St Andrew and some areas that are inaccessible to the fire unit, we generally rely on the JDF to assist us with flyovers so we can have a bird’s-eye view, so to speak, of what is taking place on the ground,” Beckford told The Gleaner.

The JFB will soon be able to conduct its own flyovers and assist in detecting the source of flames in hard-to-reach places as well as to locate persons trapped in burning buildings.

Additionally, a cohort of 85 women and men scheduled to graduate in May have been undergoing training to improve response times.

Twenty-five of them have been trained as drivers to strengthen the brigade’s muscle in operating heavy-duty fire units.

With each truck having a capacity of 4,000 litres of water, Beckford said that the 30 new fire pumpers deployed across the 34 fire stations islandwide will ensure more reliable and functional fire-response capabilities.

“One of the weaknesses within the fire brigade and one of the challenges that we face is our capacity to investigate fires,” the commissioner said.

That deficit has affected the brigade’s record collection and classification of fire incidents. Data collection is still paper-based.

The JFB will launch a $10-million fire investigative unit within a year, benefiting 30 members who will be highly trained and equipped with the necessary tools to perform thorough probes.

“We have investigators within our firefighting force, but they are limited in number, and so they are not able to investigate as many of the fires as they would want to,” he added.

Last year, property losses from fires were estimated at $6 billion, with an estimated $155 billion in property value at risk.

BUSH FIRE WORRY

Though there was a 35 per cent decline in bush fires last year - there were 4,001 incidents in 2021 compared to 6,127 the previous year - Beckford said the JFB intends to do more to address the concern as he believes the numbers to be unacceptably high.

The hotspots for bush fires are in the hilly areas of Kingston and St Andrew as well as St Elizabeth, St Catherine, and Westmoreland. Many bush fires have been attributed to large-scale slash-and-burn practices by farmers.

In 2021, there were 1,442 occurrences of careless use of fire, a 20 per cent rise from 1,202 recorded in 2020.

Acts of nature, often known as spontaneous combustion, which typically occur within forested areas, were reported 41 times in 2021, compared to 12 the year before.

Additionally, there were 1,493 garbage and dump fires reported in 2021, compared to 1,371 in 2020.

To further assist in these efforts, the JFB has partnered with the Meteorological Service of Jamaica in the launch of its bush fire warning index and management system.

This digital platform will collect data on rainfall, temperature, soil type, and land use in order to assess fire risks and to make fire forecasts.

The information will then be fed to the brigade, which will be better able to deploy resources.

“We believe that when this is up and running fully, it will be a game-changer,” said Beckford.

asha.wilks@gleanerjm.com