The National Fire Service weathered harsh public rebukes from the victims of 2 separate fires 10 days ago.
Firefighters have mostly taken those types of public blows on the chin for many years, but tonight, we have the first in a 2-part story from the perspective of the fire officials themselves.
They invited us this afternoon to observe one of their firefighting drills used to prepare for any emergency, and Daniel Ortiz has that story:
Today's simulation started at the Marion Jones Sporting Complex, where the firemen's emergency bell sounded.
The firefighters received instructions from their logistics personnel, and they immediately jumped into this parked fire engine.
Inside the truck's cabin, the 3 on-duty firefighters scrambled to suit up with their protective gears.
At the time same time, the driver moved off, and the race to the selected destination began.
The drill was planned at the Yabra Field, which was on the other side of the city. The officers were executing the entire emergency response tactics so that they could assess their own logistics for efficiency purposes.
The fire truck deftly navigated its way through Belize City's afternoon traffic, and in less than 10 minutes, they arrived at the field. They quickly retrieved the necessary lengths of hoses, and nozzles needed for the exercise, and the firefighters immediately assembled their equipment to execute the drill.
In less than a minute, the firefighters went from parking their vehicle, to actually discharging water in the simulated firefight.
All the while, their superiors were observing to ensure that the procedures were properly executed.
Kenneth Mortis - Station Supervisor, NFS
"We chose the field here by the Wesley College for the main purpose to simulate the distance in terms of actuality. There is a high expectancy that most fires happened on the south side of Belize City for reasons unknown to us. Today's primary purpose was to have you guys get a firsthand view of our operation enroute to and on a fire scene, so you came here, you notice that we started running out hose and dispensing water from the tank, you even went as far as accompany the truck to the closest hydrant to see how long it took to refill that particular truck."
Mortis also provided a summary of some of the more technical aspects of firefighting that often goes unnoticed by members of the public.
Kenneth Mortis
"This tanker holds 1,000 gallons of water; we use 3 hose terminated with what we call two branches. to fill those hose, it takes 30 gallons of water per each hose. That's where the math's come in, to effectively operate our branch, our branch operates at 100 GPM, so you are looking at 2 branches, that's equivalent to 200 gallons per minute, you are looking at 3 length of hose, that's equivalent to 90 gallons of water. You add that, that's a total of 290 gallons of water. We haven't even start touching the fire with. So that tank only gives us 720 gallons of water. To effectively mitigate that 1,000 gallons, we have from the tank, that's why you see it takes us about two and half to three minutes to dispense. I am hoping that this will serve as an eye opener to the general populist in the event of a real scenario. Of course, you house is burning, you are emotional, tempers flare, you go on the defense. I always say and continue to say the fire department doesn't contribute to a back and forth, you are the victim, you have all rights to vent."
Tune in tomorrow, when we'll have the second part of this series, in which the firefighters address some of the criticism they regularly receive.
Police Gets Two New Vehicles
The police department has not received a major fleet of vehicles of years now - and that tranche of Isuzu Dmax's are on their very last leg - after 5 years of round the clock usage.
Well, things are looking up - if only slightly - this morning, Precinct 1 and Precinct 2 in Belize City each received a brand new vehicle, courtesy of the Government of Belize.
The vehicles were officially handed over today to their Divisional Commander. Here's what the key-note speakers had to say about the importance of this donation:
Sr. Superintendent Gualberto Garcia - Division One Commander
"We're here to receive 2 brand new vehicles that will definitely assist us in the crime fighting efforts that we have here in the Southside of Belize City. As the divisional commander for Division 1, I am sure that these 2 vehicles have been needed for quite some time. One vehicle will be for Precinct 1, and 1 will be for Precinct 2, but of which are under my command."
Chester Williams - Commissioner of Police
"We know that we are living in extremely tough economic times, where getting monies to purchase vehicles and other resources is not so easy. And so with that, I want to say thanks to our Minister, the Hon. Kareem Musa, and the Prime Minister, who is the Minister of Finance, who despite the tough economic times, do see the need and found the money for us to be able to acquire these 2 brand new vehicles."
"Patrolling is an essential part of what we do because that is what we do as the preventative aspect of policing. And these vehicles will surely allow the police to do more patrols, and secondly, it is going to help the police to respond to the public's concerns in a more timely and efficient manner."
Sr. Superintendent Gualberto Garcia
"I can assure our citizenry that we will all our effort. We will put in all effort. We will put all our energy to ensure that these criminals start to feel the presence, start to feel the pressure from our police officers."
And these vehicles couldn't have arrived on a more timely occasion. The Department's fleet of mobiles has deteriorated significantly to the point where viral videos have emerged about it. In one of those recent videos, officers were seen on duty in what Belizeans would fondly call "dry-weather" vehicles. The Commissioner said today that there is a plan in the works to source new police mobiles:
Chester Williams - Commissioner of Police
"Earlier [in] the year, the minister and I embarked on a tour across the country. During that tour, one of the salient cries of police officers was that of mobility. We do recognize the fact in 2019, we got a fleet of Wingles, and those vehicles have dilapidated to the state that they are no longer serving our purpose. The citizenry across our country are not getting the level of policing that they so rightly deserve because of the fact that we are not able to respond, 1, in a timely manner, and 2, when we do respond, sometimes the vehicles that we carry our complainants in or our witnesses in, is really not in the best of condition. And so, with that, the minister had promised that we will do what can be done to replace the fleet of vehicles with new ones."
"This is a preview of coming attractions. We're still working on the fleet of 26 vehicles that we should be getting, hopefully before the Christmas holidays, and again, Eastern Division is going to receive a handsome amount of those vehicles because, again, this is one of our main areas of concern, and we want to be able to police our city to the best of our ability."
The vehicles handed over today came at a cost of $65,000 each.
Photos Of Most Recent Drug Jet
Earlier in the news, you heard Police Commissioner Chester made the first official disclosures on that drug jet that landed in the Corozal District last week.
Well, shortly after our story aired, photographs of the jet itself were shared with us. Seen here, the aircraft was found burning off a feeder road at Camp 33, Little Belize.
As we reported, it was seen flying low in Belizean airspace for several hours, and according to the Police Commissioner, although Belizean law enforcement was informed about it, they were tipped off a bit late. They attempted to respond, but they didn't find it until after a number of hours had passed.
It is believed that by that time, some sort of ground logistics team had already swooped in to remove the aircraft's drug cargo.
