As dawn rose over Spanish Town on Thursday, March 11, someone placed a frantic call to the Fire Department: the courthouse in historic Emancipation Square was on fire. The flames, fanned by a brisk morning breeze, ravaged critical court files, computers, and importantly, the reputation of the Jamaica fire service.

Although firemen fought bravely to contain the fire and saved the section where cases are tried, once again, the parlous state of the fire service was embarrassingly displayed. As the firemen told it, the first fire engine to arrive was coming from an earlier blaze and much of its water supply was already depleted. Twenty minutes into the courthouse fire, that unit had to leave to get water, as the fire hydrants in the vicinity were of no use to the fire-fighters.

More than an hour after the fire had vented its fury on the decades-old building, units from the York Park station, 14 miles or so from Spanish Town, arrived to find that the conflagration had re-intensified into a towering inferno that caused the roof of the courthouse to cave in. The embarrassment was complete when reports said some court employees had turned up in different stages of undress to watch with open mouths as the gloomy spectacle unfolded.

The Monday before that, the Black River fire truck was on its way to New Market in St Elizabeth to put out a bush fire. With one hill left to climb, the unit began to overheat, sputtered a few times and gave up the quest, returning to base without completing the job. That ill-fated unit was replaced by one from Santa Cruz. It, too, like the one in Spanish Town, was limping back from an earlier fire when it was summoned to New Market.

“Luckily it was a bush fire and there were no buildings threatened,” muttered Senior Deputy Superintendent Earle Hylton.

Ironically, the two fires broke out amid widespread complaints, heavily publicised in sections of the media, that the Jamaica fire service had deteriorated so drastically that it would be of little use if major fires raged.

Most of the 33 stations have old fire trucks that are poorly maintained, and are short of basic equipment such as breathing masks and compressors, saws, hoses, portable pumps and hydraulic rescue equipment. Many stations are themselves in deplorable condition. In one case, fire-fighters were forced to share quarters with an infirmary.

Many of the fire stations complain of low staff morale because of the shortage of equipment and the poor working conditions. Some had to battle with the disconnection of utilities because of the non-payment of bills.

Stations in the parishes of St Mary, St Ann, Trelawny, St James and Portland all reported that telephone lines had been disconnected. Most of the lines affected were from the administrative department and thankfully, not the fire lines on which emergency calls are made and received.

However, in Annotto Bay, St Mary, the emergency line had been disconnected, limiting fire-fighters to incoming calls only, or to resort to cellular phones.

“Morale is extremely low because the men and women who want to do a good job cannot do it effectively without proper tools,” Deputy Commissioner Frederick White complained to the Sunday Observer.

“For the longest time we have not bought any fire trucks. In 1995, we got 23 units which were distributed all over the island,” said White.

He was of the view that so many new units should not be bought at the same time as they generally broke down simultaneously. “The units should be staggered so you have new ones coming into service at different times.”

Things have gotten to the point that officials at the local government ministry don’t even bother to get themselves heated over the fact that firemen openly complain to the media about the state of the service.

Ann Shirley, a consultant with the ministry, admitted up front that as many as 17 trucks were out of service at one time in recent weeks. Shirley did not hide the fact that the ministry was severely strapped for funds.

For the 2003-2004 financial year, it was only allocated $8 million of the $70-million capital budget requested. “When the capital budget gets cut there is no money to fix fire hydrants or put in new ones,” said Shirley.

That is bad news for the island where a persistent drought that has had farmers worried, can be expected to spawn serious bush fires. At the rate the service has been responding to fires already, Jamaica could end up with some 10,560 fires this year. Fire Brigade statistics show that in January 2004 alone, the fire service responded to 880 genuine fire calls. For all of 2003, they responded to 6,169 genuine calls.

Shirley agreed that a way would have to be found to rebuild the four worst fire stations in Trelawny, Barnett Street in Montego Bay, Port Maria, St Mary and Black River in St Elizabeth, as well as to overhaul all the fire trucks in the system.

She disclosed that a detailed Cabinet submission had been made on the fire services, including the need for new vehicles. “It is going to cost in excess of $300 million to do what needs to be done,” she told the Sunday Observer. “Everyone knows the needs and cost, the question is how much is going to be given for budgetary allocation. We need a new fleet, we haven’t bought any new vehicles since 1995. Fire trucks can last you up to 30 years, but you have to service and maintain them on a regular basis.”

Holding out some hope, Shirley said that the finance ministry, the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ) and her ministry were seeking external financing to purchase both fire and garbage trucks. “They have been doing a lot of negotiations (with the French) for the entire year since I have been here. Talks are taking place,” Shirley said.

A senior fire service source who did not want to be identified, expressed the view that the number of fire stations might have to be reduced and the services rationalised as funds were not available to equip all the stations adequately.

“It would be better to have 20 well-equipped fire stations than to have 33 as we have and not be able to operate them efficiently,” the source argued.

Sunday Observer reporters travelled to several of the fire stations to get a first-hand look at conditions. This is what they found:

In Kingston and St Andrew there are seven fire stations – at York Park, Trench Town, Rollington Town, Port Royal, Stony Hill, Half-Way-Tree, and the Fireboat station at Newport East. The critical York Park station, to which most others look for assistance, was short of three pumpers (which carry water in tanks) and one of its two high-rise turn cables was not working. The fireboat was out of service as it was taking in water through the shaft and US$10,000 was needed to repair it.

“We are having a hard time with the units. We can’t do preventative maintenance and are relying on adhoc maintenance,” said Deputy Commissioner White.

Clarendon has two fire stations in May Pen and Frankfield, but only the fire truck at the May Pen station was functional as the one at Frankfield needed tyres. The stations were also short of breathing apparatus and the substitute dust masks used at bush fires were inadequate, putting firemen and women at greater risk.

Because of the size of Clarendon, at least two additional fire stations are needed at Vere Plains and Morant Pinders in north east Clarendon, said District Officer Livingston Morgan.

“In the case of fire, it takes a long time to get to these areas, especially with the Frankfield unit down. Due to the distance, sometimes when the unit arrives the building has already burnt down and we can only do cooling down operations,” Morgan told the newspaper.

St Elizabeth has three fire stations at Black River, Santa Cruz and Junction, but only the Santa Cruz fire truck is “limping along”. The stations are also short of uniforms, breathing apparatus and compressors, chain saws and ink for the computer printer, among other things.

The Black River fire station, which was built to house about 20 persons, now has to accommodate 45 male and female firefighters, resulting in the dormitories being cramped. The fire station premises were not fenced, had become a public thoroughfare and the station chief was concerned that there were no shutters to secure vital equipment. Through their own efforts, the staff had been trying to expand the dormitory space, however. “Through self-help, we are constructing an office so as to be able to free up the existing office for a dormitory,” said Deputy Superintendent Hylton.

In Manchester, the three old fire trucks at the Mandeville and Christiana stations were under stress and broke down frequently. Radio communication was not working properly, resulting in the men having to use their personal cellulars to do the fire brigade’s business. There were only a few breathing apparatus and masks were being staggered.

“Because there are not enough masks, at a fire we send in two firemen with breathing masks. When they are running out of oxygen, they know and come out and another two firemen with masks go in, District Officer Garth Wright explained.

In St Ann, there are three units, one each at St Ann’s Bay, Ocho Rios and Brown’s Town. The main problem is a leaking tank on both the St Ann’s Bay and Brown’s Town units. There is also a broken ladder on the St Ann’s Bay unit and the firemen had difficulty operating the sliding shutters to access the hoses and other key equipment housed on either side of the truck.

An air pump machine, used to fill cylinders with air for emergency services, and one of only three in the island, remained disabled at the St Ann’s Bay station. When tanks need filling, they have to be taken to Montego Bay.

The Brown’s Town unit had problems with its turntable ladder, which was said to have been sent to Kingston for overhauling, remained there for almost a month but was returned in no better condition.

“They (the trucks) are plagued with problems as they are aged units,” said St Ann fire chief, Senior Deputy Superintendent Denzel Kerr. “They have been in the system from in the 1980s. The Ocho Rios unit – about nine years old – also has its problems. The shocks need to be replaced and the springs are getting weak as a result of the shocks not being replaced.”

In St James, only two of the 12 units in the tourist resort city of Montego Bay were functional, the fireboat was out of commission and the unit used to fight high-rise fires could not be used. The most critical items on the shortage list were pumpers.

In Trelawny, the fire-fighters were being housed in the matron’s quarters of the Trelawny Infirmary. In-service training activities were also curtailed because of the need to keep the noise at a minimum out of respect for their elderly neighbours.

“Every shift is supposed to have a drill,” said Robert Clayton, the deputy superintendent in charge of Falmouth, “but on the late shift we cannot do so because we don’t want to disturb our sick and indigent neighbours.”

In addition to the cramped space, fire-fighters there also complained that the matron’s quarters was rodent-infested, and that their equipment and gear got wet from water coming in under the window sills whenever it rained.

Additional reporting by Carl Gilchrist in Ocho Rios and Horace Hines in Montego Bay