A fire unit has been sent to Kingston for repairs to address the situation of the Ocho Rios fire station that has been without a fire unit.
North Coast Times last week reported that Ocho Rios had no functioning unit and showed pictures of three non-functioning units at the station.
The attempts to get one unit back in operation at St Ann’s busiest fire station was reported by assistant superintendent of fire, Carol Wilmot at the monthly meeting of the St Ann Municipal Corporation.
The Ocho Rios station, which Ms Wilmot described as “the most active in St Ann and the second most active station in the island”, was left without a unit after it was damaged from overturning in Fern Gully, last month.
The unit was acquired last year.
Reports are that on Tuesday, September 19 at 4:50 a.m., the fire unit and its crew were returning from a house fire call at Retirement in Moneague, when it overturned on its right side along the Fern Gully main road.
Although there was no fatality, all seven members of the crew received varying injuries and were transported to the St Ann’s Bay Hospital.
“While the vehicle itself, I wouldn’t consider it as bad, but a number of our members are still out or on light duties with broken shoulder bones and back injuries,” Ms Wilmot told councilors present at the meeting.
In responding to the cause of the vehicle overturning, she said that one of the tires “blew out.”
This she said has left the response capabilities of the St Ann Fire department reduced as only the Brown’s Town and the St Ann’s Bay Fire Stations have responding units at this time.
In the meantime, during the month of September, the brigade received and responded to a total of 70 incident calls. This figure represented an increase of 13 percent when compared to the 62 incidents calls for August.
There were 50 genuine fires for September. Of this number, there were 30 bush fires and seven residential fires.
