By Kimani Wiseman
Fires can be very destructive to homes and businesses if it is not kept under control in a timely manner. In the blink of an eye, households and businesses assets can literally “go up in smoke”. Fires can be compounded if households and businesses don’t have insurance. Sometimes households and businesses cannot afford insurance which puts their property at risk in the event of a fire. It can be very depressing and stressful for any business or household to lose all their assets from a fire, hence the reason why it is very imperative for fires to be kept under control and to prevent it from spreading to other properties.
Firemen in SVG have been struggling to keep fires under control. Fires can be a nightmare for firemen. It is very risky dealing with fires. In some cases, firemen have to risk their life to keep fires under control. St. Vincent and the Grenadines is a mountainous island with very narrow roads. Fire trucks can be difficult to travel hilly areas and depending on the size of the truck, it can be a challenge to travel on narrow roads. Can you envision a fire occurring at Richmond or Fancy? It would take a small fire truck to traverse on these narrow roads to arrive at Richmond or Fancy. A small fire truck cannot carry a lot of water which can be very problematic for keeping fires under control.
Investing in a fire fighting helicopter could alleviate these problems. Helicopters are aerial and they can reach difficult areas fire trucks would not be able to reach in a timely manner. A fire fighting helicopter can also assist with “forest fires”. For example, if an arsonist was to go in the forest and start a fire, fire trucks cannot reach in the forest, how would this fire be kept under control? If a serious forest fire occurs in SVG during the dry season it would be very difficult to control because it would spread very quickly when the vegetation is dry. The forest is a habitat for our national bird the Amazona Guildingii, it is also a habitat for our wildlife and other species of birds. The forest provides us with clean water in our pipes and it also helps to prevent soil erosion. A serious forest fire in SVG can cause our national bird and other animals to be “extinct”, less water in our pipes and soil erosion during heavy rainfall which would cause soil and sediments in our water resulting in “gastroenteritis”. Forest fires can also cause respiratory problems in humans if it gets out of control. In haling a lot of smoke from forest fires can be lethal. According to a BBC news article, the article states that wild fire smoke has been found to be harmful to certain immune cells in the lungs, with a toxicity four times greater than particulates from other types of pollution. (https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240213-unhealthy-air-how-pollution-changes-your-body-and-mind) A firefighting helicopter would be able to reach high in the mountain to alleviate forest fires and to save our forest from a catastrophe.
