WESTERN BUREAU — A fire, which destroyed three houses along Wakeland Drive in Falmouth, Trelawny on Saturday afternoon, has left 29 people homeless.

But residents of the community said the damage, which is estimated at $11.8 million, could have been less, if there was a functioning fire unit in Falmouth at the time.

Firefighters in the town said they could not respond to the call because the unit at the time was down. It had brake problems.

What should then have been a five-minute response became 25 minutes for the fire unit that came from Ironshore in Montego Bay and 35 minutes for the one at Barnett Street, also in the western city.

“We have been having problems with that unit (in Falmouth) for about a month now, on and off. It was having a transmission problem and it just last Tuesday that the brake problem was discovered. So we had to call in the technical people because we can’t do it properly…” deputy superintendent in charge of the Trelawny, Robert Clayton told the Observer.

“If the serviceable truck was in Falmouth, within five minutes a unit would have been on the scene. It’s very depressing for all genuine firefighters and contrary to what the public might think, firefighters are very sensitive to their work. When we receive an alarm that there is a fire and we are unable to go and do what we are trained to do, it depresses us and we feel it very much.”

The superintendent said, however, that the repair of the truck was completed yesterday morning and that the department would now work to ensure that a proper servicing and maintenance programme was put in place within the next month.

“There are plans afoot to have regular servicing of the units, say within the next month… We are working to ensure that things of this sort do not happen. But right now our hands are tied in that the units that we have are insufficient and we have to spread them across the country as much as we can so that everywhere will have even a minimum amount of fire protection,” he said.

The superintendent said, however, that he was grateful no lives had been lost in Saturday’s tragedy.

“I thank God that there was no loss of life and with a fire with the intensity I saw and the velocity with which it moved, there could have been loss of life. And I would just like to extend my sympathy to those who lost anything…” he said.

Meanwhile, the 29 people who have been left without a home and who form part of three separate families were yesterday trying to salvage the pieces of property they lost in the fire that started at about 3:00 pm.

“I was outside washing and my husband was outside sitting down and a little boy come to us and said “yuh house on fire”. But when we rushed to the house, we couldn’t go in and then how the breeze a blow again (we couldn’t save anything),” said Ethel White who watched helplessly as her five-bedroom house went up in flames Saturday.

“The MP (Wendell Stewart) came and talked to me and said he would see what him can do so I mustn’t worry myself and a few people come and gave us clothes and so on because everything burn up… People come around and help and Food for the Poor carried things for us,” she said.

There were 18 persons displaced from her household, all of whom have to stay with other relatives and friends.

Kevin Hibbert, who lived in the house where the fire started, has expressed regret that the other houses were affected but said that had there been a fire unit in Falmouth, they would not have been affected and even then, only minimally.

“If they did have a unit, it (my house) would be burned but not all of it and the second and third house would not have been burned,” he said.

He added that among the property lost by his nine-member household were his mother’s travel documents and “a lot of money” belonging to his grandmother. And it was in an unsuccessful attempt to retrieve them that he got a cut on the knee and while his grandfather got minor burns.

Hibbert’s uncle, Michael Pritchard has urged the fire department to ensure they have a fire unit up and running at all times.