MANDEVILLE, Manchester — The Jamaica Fire Brigade (JFB) has estimated the damage resulting from last month’s massive fire at Heaven’s Fesco gas station here at $100 million.

Head of the Manchester fire division Deputy Superintendent Joshua Davis made the disclosure at last Thursday’s meeting of the Manchester Municipal Corporation.

“On February 21, the gas station [fire] and motor vehicles [damaged] at 2 Manchester Road, the loss is estimated at $100 million and the risk was $4 billion. Five persons were injured — four adults and one child,” he said.

Davis believes people have become careless in the area of fire prevention and safety.

He said: “People are getting more and more careless… when we had the fire at the gas station and the way how people responded… it is the culture — you notice that even if people hear gunshots firing, instead of running to the opposite direction, they run towards where the shots are coming from, so it is a culture that we are going to have to try to get out of our people.

“We don’t know how we are going to do it, but we continue to educate. We go into the school and we teach them (students) about fire prevention. We teach from the basic to high school levels and we give them information to also take home to the parents,” he added.

The deputy superintendent said motorists continue to ignore fire units with lights flashing and sirens wailing.

“Just consider sometimes that even when the [fire] truck is going along the way with the sirens blaring, the taxis and other vehicles are trying to race the fire truck. There are a lot of problems that we are having, and we need to find a way to fix it… I believe the various agencies and the municipality — we have to come together to find a way to fix these things in order to have a safer place,” he went on.

Davis, said, too, that the public needs to be careful, as the risk resulting from fires increased drastically in February.

“The estimated value of property at risk for the period [February] was $7,594,270,000. The last period (January), the estimated value was $823,250,000. So we can realise now that the fires are going closer to where the monies [high-value properties] are, so people need to be careful,” he said.

The report from the JFB on the gas station fire has not yet been made public. Speculations continue as to how the fire started.

The blaze, which resulted in the death of 59-year-old mechanic, Daniel Farquharson, in addition to other people being injured, sparked widespread debate about how gas stations are being operated. Two of the injured individuals are still in hospital.

Repair work has been ongoing at Heaven’s Fesco gas station. The canopy bearing the Fesco logo has been repaired.