Major Plans in the Making for National Fire Service
Colin Gillett
The former Fire Department headquarters was sold in September 2020 to Atlantic Bank for two point eight million dollars. At the time, the Barrow administration said the proceeds of the sale would be used to build a better building on Independence Boulevard, to the tune of three point three million dollars. But the plan has changed since then and the goals now are to renovate existing stations across the country, install several others in Belize City and possibly acquire an additional sixty fire-fighters to complement the one hundred and fifty on staff.
Colin Gillett, Fire Chief, National Fire Service
“We are working with BWSL to install additional fire hydrants in the city and all over the country and we are trying to get some projects working where we can put a different type of hydrant so that in the rural areas we will be able to put elevated tanks so that they would have access to the water. So everything that we are trying to do is with new techniques and moving away from the way it used to be. We already have plans, an idea of what the stations are going to look like. We are going to build six smaller stations because if you think about Independence and Placencia, those are real stations. So we are trying to make them look like, paten them off the one in Spanish Lookout which is a steel frame building, nice, it has everything in it. So that’s the kind of cookie-cutter type of station that we are trying to build. We are hoping within the next year and a half everything is going to be in place, including the one on Chetumal Street. Presently, we are using a lot of relief volunteers who come in and help out if a fire-fighter is sick that day. But our focus now is to get additional fire-fighters; have an intake. We are hoping to get sixty fire-fighters, which is after we promote the ones we already have and then we will be able to have a good complement because one of the plans in this overall project is to create another station in Orange Walk.”
Fire Chief Gillett says that the National Fire Service is expected to acquire additional fire trucks and equipment for the department.
