‘Most businesses lack proper safety provisions’

Most business houses in St .Vincent and the Grenadines lack basic fire safety equipment and emergency escape routes.{{more}}

This observation was made on Wednesday, September 8, by Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Isaiah Browne and Sergeant 127 Charles Adams of the Fire Department of the Royal St. Vincent and the Grenadines Police Force, who in an interview with SEARCHLIGHT stressed the need for education on fire safety.

However, Adams and Charles, who are presently conducting inspections, safety drills and training at several businesses and schools around the country, said there has been an increase in requests for assistance from the public since last Friday’s fire in Barbados, which claimed the lives of six, including one Vincentian.

“Most business houses in St. Vincent and the Grenadines that we do inspect and go to, they don’t see it as if it (a fire) could happen to my building, or they rather go the cheaper way, not buying anything and being safe,” said Adams, second in command at the Arnos Vale Fire Station.

Adams stated that equipment such as fire extinguishers and smoke detectors, and emergency escape routes should be in every home and business house. Unfortunately, these are lacking in most business houses and homes in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, he noted.

The absence of emergency escape routes was also identified as a major safety hazard by the fire officials. ASP Browne disclosed that upon his inspection of most businesses in Kingstown, there is only one exit and one entrance. That, he said, has to do mostly with the way the buildings were built. To make matters worse, that one exit is, in many cases, blocked with chairs, mattresses and other items, which he says will pose a problem if there is an emergency and persons have to evacuate.

“If you really have an emergency, then you’ll have a problem because everybody will try to come through this one door,” he said.

Adams also stated that a few businesses have their emergency exits locked during business hours. This he says, should not be. “It (The Exit) should be open once you are open for business!” he said.

He also shared an observation about some stores in Kingstown which sell items such as clothes, paints and other chemical materials, which may be very dangerous and difficult to control in the event of a fire.

“If there is a fire, these things would give fuel to the fire. If we the fire fighters go into the fire, we would not know the content of the building, so it will make our job more difficult as fire fighters. You find stores like that coming on stream in St. Vincent and the Grenadines and they don’t have smoke detectors, they don’t have anything, so you up against these chemicals…,” Adams explained. He added that the firemen would not have equipment to deal with such fires.

Adams stressed that there is a need to educate the public on such issues. Commenting on the tragic fire which claimed the lives of six women in Barbados on Friday, September 3, 2010, Adams said that there is a lot that can be learnt from what happened. “We can take a page out of what happened and see that we in St. Vincent, in the case where stores are concerned, need to beef up our education, in terms of what to do when we are in a building. We definitely need to step up on our game and learn from what happened in Barbados”, he said. He also stated that one way of escaping such a fire would have been to wrap the entire body with a cloth or clothing like a mummy and run quickly through the fire to an exit.

Browne also gave some basic safety tips, the most important of which, was never to leave young children at home alone, as unsupervised children was one of the major causes of fire in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Another important tip Browne noted was to make sure that homes or businesses with burglar bars have an escape window big enough for the largest person in the building to pass through. Browne also warned about overloading electrical outlets and making sure that cigarette buds are extinguished completely.

Adams advised that a basic extinguisher such as an ABC (Alpha, Beta and Charlie) can be used for homes and small businesses, as it deals with the general fires caused by wood or paper, flammable liquids or electricity (A, B and C respectively). Co2 (Carbon dioxide) extinguishers, Adams said, are better for rooms with computers or similar devices. The size and the quantity of extinguishers needed depend on the space of the building, Adams said.

Adding that the instances of fires in St. Vincent and the Grenadines have decreased by 80% since the end of the drought experienced earlier this year, both officers stressed that in the times of a fire, the general public should give the firemen space to do their work.

“We need Vincentians to understand that when we get on a fire scene, we need the area properly cordoned off. People tend to get around the fireman when there is a fire and that tends to hinder the fireman’s job. So I’m saying in short, we need the co-operation where they can let us do our job.” Browne said.