CEMO Symposium Addresses Fire Safety

The annual symposium organized by the Central Emergency Management Organization, arm of the Belize City Council, begins on Wednesday at the Belize Biltmore Plaza. In addition to discussions about preparation for tackling massive disasters such as fires and hurricanes, an expo will be held featuring information from key stakeholders targeted at a younger audience. CEMO has preached about the necessity for preparedness for all types of disasters and the event is intended as further education of City residents and the wider public. CEMO Councillor Phillip Willoughby and Mayor Darrell Bradley gave details at a recent press briefing.

Philip Willoughby

Philip Willoughby, CEMO Councillor

“The highlight of the symposium will be, yes, primarily based on emergency management and mitigation, but more so in the area of fire: how we deal with fires, how we respond to fires, the first responders. We will have presentations by the National Fire Service within the day’s agenda, and we will have a presentation by, I believe, a foreign expert [through] the Belize Port Authority, who will be with us for the two days of the seminar/symposium. So we look forward to the presentation from the person representing the Belize Port Authority and the National Fire Service.”

Darrell Bradley

Darrell Bradley, Mayor of Belize City

“The CEMO Symposium has become really a focal point for the City Council, to give us a forum to raise topical and very timely issues in relation to emergency management. One of the things that members of the public will be readily aware of is that the City has been hit by a series of very severe fires, which have displaced a significant amount of persons and in some cases have caused substantial loss to property and unfortunately loss of life. One of the things that Councillor Willoughby and the CEMO team uses the CEMO symposium as being very responsive to the emergency awareness needs within Belize City. Previous symposiums have focused on climate change; they have focused on hurricanes; we tend to think of emergency management as responding to hurricanes, but when we saw the recent Majestic Alley fire where significant amount of people were displaced, that is not necessarily the case. We’ve also focused on major accidents and emergencies, so that when we look at the event of an emergency, essentially what that is, is when the normal operations are disrupted and additional assets and resources have to be deployed to ensure that we are saving life and we are mitigating any further impact to human beings and damage to property.”

Activities begin at eight-thirty Wednesday morning.