AmbergrisCaye.com Home Forums The Cayes Ambergris Caye Fire destroys buildings in San Pedro town

You would of thought the fire department would learned after last years big fire. What would it take the next time with the possibility of loss of life for the town council to provide better fire service????

Fire Service is not Town Board...its GOB

Whom ever is in charge of protecting the citizens and tourists of San Pedro.

Fire service is forever arriving at fires with empty tankers, men who can't prime a pump or whatever.
Some years ago I called the fire station to report a house fire and the person answering the phone said "nobody is here". The house burned down. Three firefighters arrived a few hours later to watch neighbors tamp down the ashes - they sat on their behinds and laughed and joked and then demanded a ride home.
This is nothing short of absolute travesty on every level.

You bet its a travesty Diane, but remember, the firemen are probably paid the same wages as the cops. They have nothing so why save your house. Until they belive they are in the same economic level as the rest, this is what you will get for service.

No idea what the firemen are paid, but they perform substantially worse than the police and are called on to perform far less frequently. Nobody is shooting at them and they are not expected to enter a burning building for any reason .....
Clearly we don't have an effective system and the chronic tendency to evade responsibility with lame excuses rather than abject apologies - - - it's just plain wrong.

We have a pervasive lack of awareness about fire in this country - from unattended brush-fires to unenforced building codes .......

The San Pedro FD is under equipped, under staffed, under trained and under funded.
The island has some very unique problems for providing proper fire service to the residents.
It is only a matter of time until a fire starts in one of the downtown buildings on a windy day and the entire area will be destroyed.
And the island has far more fires than most small towns of the same population.

Reaper -
What do you think of volunteer firemen neighborhood by neighborhood?

I think it's a good idea.
The problem with the SPFD is that it is part of the National Fire Brigade. There are some pretty simple solutions to the problems, however it would take some bold steps by the Mayor.
The island should take over the FD. Hire and train good, upstanding local kids that are in their early 20's. They know the island, the residents and would care.
There should be a fully manned station in town as is. There should be a fire boat. It could get anywhere quickly, even for medical emergencies. There should be a pumper on the north side of the bridge manned by well trained volunteers and a pumper down south manned by volunteers.
Fire departments here in the states donate a ton of old, used equipment that is still very usable. It wouldn't take much to outfit the entire island.
The next step is getting them trained for medical emergencies.
It just takes some vision and leadership and a lot of hard work by the right folks. And some tax dollars to fund it.

Well said reaper. We tried about three years ago to organize some kind of emergency medical system but the effort died (forgive the pun) from apathy.