THE St Catherine Parish Council has come to the aid of the ailing Spanish Town Fire Brigade by donating $1 million to repair the town’s three defunct fire units.

“The council is making $1 million available to repair the non-functional trucks in St Catherine, but especially those in Spanish Town, as the lack of resources in the fire service can become a public health hazard,” chairman of the St Catherine Parish Council, Mayor Raymoth Notice, told the Observer.

He described the parish’s fire service as a “total disaster”, as there are no working fire units at the four fire stations. In addition, the dormitory community of Portmore is also without fire vehicles.

The problems within the St Catherine fire services are indicative of the problems being experienced across the entire island. Local Government Minister Portia Simpson Miller earned the wrath of some members of the ruling People’s National Party, Wednesday, after she opted not to vote on an Opposition motion that expressed concern at the $637-million shortfall in the 2004/2005 allocation to the island’s fire services.

This year’s shortfall in the allocation for the fire services comes on the heels of what Simpson Miller described as a “very difficult period” last year.

There have been reports of utilities being disconnected at various fire stations across the island, buildings badly in need of fixing and fleets in disrepair.

According to Mayor Notice, the council was presented with a $1.671-million repair bill for vehicles in Spanish Town, Bog Walk and Linstead on Tuesday. This included:

. $310,000 to repair two Isuzu trucks and a foam tender vehicle in Spanish Town,

. and $469,000 to repair two trucks at Old Harbour and Linstead.

The council has made it clear that it will oversee the use of the million-dollar donation as it moves to ensure speedy and effective repairs to the fire units.

The injection of funds comes on the heels of last month’s $30,000 donation from the Friends of Spanish Town who took the initiative to repair Engine 61. However that unit is among those that now need to be repaired.

“We are only answering important calls because we do not have any vehicles,” said district officer for Spanish Town, John Forrester.

The station now receives an average of 45 calls per week, he said, most of them bush fires that generally come with the dry season.

He warned that the fire department was now incapable of responding to a major fire.

“We only have a big 5,000-gallon water tank and a small Isuzu van. The big water unit cannot go into the small, narrow streets here; so we would have a very serious problem,” Forrester explained.