Benn tells Fire Service to come up with 10-point plan

Minister of Home Affairs Robeson Benn has urged the Guyana Fire Service (GFS) to come up with a 10-point plan to manage future challenges given the country’s rapid development spawned by the oil and gas sector.

“We have to be ready, we have to be concerned, we have to be prepared, we have to have equipment, we have to have the best attack when there is a fire,” Benn said at the opening of the GFS’ Annual Senior Officers’ conference at the Police Officers’ Training Centre, Eve Leary.

“I want us to make sure that when we are going into action that we have the breathing apparatus on the leading persons on the hoses and that they play their hoses at the source of the fire and that everything is done to make sure that we attack the situation in the most professional way,” he added.

According to Benn, Guyana is at the most “propitious” point of development and the oil and gas sector brings new challenges.

He referred to peculiarities of those highly flammable substances which will come out and which will land in particular areas.”

But in order to improve their response, Benn said there is a need to identify the existing gaps.

As such, he said a review is needed at each level of the GFS to identify the ten “critical, iterative” areas of improvement.

“Identify the most critical, iterative issues which we have to work on to have improvement…to make sure we do the best we can when we are faced with challenges. We have to do the reviews, intro sections. To look at each other in the eyes and to see where we have failed. Where we have repeatedly making mistakes. We have to look at where we have criticism,” Benn said.

The Home Affairs, Minister pointed out that there is a needed for expansion in the rescue service.

“We need to utilize our resources in the most optimal way to deal with national challenge of protection from fire, protection of loss of life and destruction and injury in relation to fire,” he said.

Meanwhile, Fire Chief (ag) Gregory Wickham said over the past two years, the some 200 ranks of the GFS were trained in various areas including management, supervision and communication.

Training was also done in defensive driving and heavy duty operators, to improve their firefighting capabilities.

“We see training and the development on the educational side as very important for us to be able to be very competitive in the world in which we exist,” Wickham said.

“The Guyana Fire Service would have taken a very strong hold of having training done for our ranks hence we recognize the importance of having our middle managers and senior managers or officers trained,” he noted.

And as it relates to building capacity and development within the GFS, Wickham said for the first time all 21 fire stations throughout the country have a sub officer.

 “It is expected that from this conference, we will develop momentum to take us in the direction and provide for us a platform that we will be able to build upon to ensure that we have the Guyana Fire Service place strategically in the position that it ought to be when it comes to national building and safety and security,” Wickham said.