Whenever there's a fire, victims are usually too quick to blame the Fire Department for an inadequate response. Well tonight, it's not just baseless carping about the Fire Department; the residents of the Old City Council Road may have a legitimate gripe. On Saturday afternoon a fire developed inside an apartment building just a couple houses from the south side fire station on Dolphin Street, and just as they were needed most, the department was not there to offer assistance. Alfonso Noble reports.
Alfonso Noble Reporting,
At midday on Saturday fire broke out at this apartment on the old city council road. Michelle Ramclam was at home with her three children when she saw smoke streaming into her apartment.
Michelle Ramclam, Fire Victim
"I had just finished washing and I went inside to clean my apartment and I was sitting on the bed and I was flipping the channels on the TV and I just saw something dazzling and when I looked up I saw black smoke. I figured immediately it was a fire and I came out. I decided to go and call the person in the next room and by the time I came out, the room that the fire was in was already in a big blaze already. So by the time I hollered for the fire truck and everything, I run to the neighbor to leave my baby and I ran back. I room was already engulfed and all I could do was run and pick in the clothes I had on the line because I realized I couldn't go in the room and take out anything."
Alfonso Noble,
So you lost everything?
Michelle Ramclam,
"Everything, everything. I didn't take out anything. The only thing I saved was what was on the line. The fire started in the room right next to my one. I live in room two and her one is three. She passed my room like five minutes before I saw the smoke and she didn't come back so I don't...but I know its in her room it started though because when I came out the fire was in her room and in the other room before her room, nothing was burning."
But while Ramclam says she knows from which room the fire started she feels disappointed in the way the fire department responded to the call. Especially because the south side sub station is only four houses from where the fire broke out. To her dismay there was no one to respond from there.
Michelle Ramclam,
"When we called for assistance from the Fire Department no truck was at the Fire Station. If you are a fire station, at least one truck should have been there because at any moment a fire could start. and they'll need to assist somebody. If they were right there, maybe the room where the fire started would have been destroyed a little bit but all the rest would have been saved."
Deputy Fire Chief Ted Smith says that her argument may be true but the fact of the matter is that the station cannot be occupied at all times and it so happens that the truck that is usually in the station was out for repairs.
Ted Smith, Deputy Fire Chief
"That truck was over here at the headquarters, that truck is having a little mechanical problems, going through a series of problems. Saturday morning it came over for maintenance. As we speak, this morning too that truck was here having some brake problems and the mechanic worked on it whole morning and then sent it back over there again. Sometimes you just don't have another truck to send over there and you can't expect the station to have a truck twenty-four hours, the truck has to go out. So what would have happened if the truck had gone out on another fire? If we have an accident on the road right now, that's the truck that responds to traffic accidents. If a accident occurs at mile 25 and people's lives are at stake we have to send that truck and there'll be no truck over there until that truck returns. Maybe in the future we need to look at getting more trucks and have more stations on the southside."
Tonight that may be little or no consolation for this young couple who are tonight left with absolutely nothing.
Michelle Ramclam,
"We have to struggle right now, lucky thing he has a job, so we just have to depend on that until we get back what we had before because I don't think we'll ever get back what he had, just the basic household items we need."
Joel Duncan,
"We need clothing, we need some food items, and stuff like that because we lost everything; stove, bed-we don't have anything at this time."
Anyone wishing to assist the couple can do so by calling them at 621-1881.
