The fire in Ocho Rios Sunday morning, October 8, that destroyed two shops at Carib Arcade, has thrown up fresh questions about the state of the fire service in the resort town.
The Ocho Rios fire brigade located less than three miles from the fire on Main Street was unable to respond at all. The unit there has been down for more than three weeks since it overturned, responding to a fire call, September 19.
It is not clear when the Ocho Rios station will receive a working unit.
However, with there being no functioning unit at Ocho Rios, the fire call Sunday morning was responded to by two units from St Ann’s Bay, the headquarters for St Ann, and one from Port Maria in the neighbouring parish/.
Those units reached the fire scene relatively quickly, after the fire call sometime around 5 a.m. Senior deputy superintendent Anthony Hinds, at the St Ann’s Bay headquarters told the North Coast Times “the men did a good job” in cooling down operations.
But questions have been raised about whether the additional fifteen to twenty minutes taken by the units from St Ann’s Bay, relative to what it would be for Ocho Rios, might have made a difference to the losses suffered in the fire. St Ann’s Bay is 15 kilometers away from Ocho Rios. Port Maria is even further away, some 34 kilometers from Oho Rios.
In addition questions are being asked about what could happen in the case of a major fire in the resort town.
Senior Deputy Superintendent Hinds told The Times he could not provide any information about when the unit at Ocho Rios would be returned to service or replaced. He said that was outside his portfolio.
