{"id":2069,"date":"2019-01-16T20:28:20","date_gmt":"2019-01-16T20:28:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/westernmirror.com\/?p=2069"},"modified":"2019-01-16T20:28:22","modified_gmt":"2019-01-16T20:28:22","slug":"st-james-on-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/?p=2069","title":{"rendered":"St. James on fire"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>The St. James Division of the Jamaica Fire\nBrigade has seen an increase in emergency calls for the year 2018, compared\nwith the previous year.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The report follows a total of 1,244 documented fire calls\nfor the year 2018, a 5% increase from 2017, which recorded 1180.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In an interview with the Divisional Head of St. James,\nSuperintendent Kevin Haughton, he stated that the total number of calls were\nnot the greatest cause for concern. The increase in what are deemed as\nmalicious false alarms, however, and genuine fire, warranted the Brigade\u2019s\nattention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Further research shows that this increment could be attributed\nto an escalation in actual fire calls, malicious false alarms, and special\nservices offered\/requested from the organization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cMalicious false calls are calls made to the Brigade and\nupon reaching the location, there are no signs of a fire, while false alarm\nwith good intent is basically a call made to the Brigade and on reaching the\nlocation, it is of a lesser severity than what was reported, or our services\nare no longer required,\u201d Haughton stated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Superintendent went on to explain that special services\nare non-emergencies that the Brigade responds to, e.g. washing roads after a\nmotor vehicle accident or a citizen who has been locked out of their premises\nand require assistance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A total of 748 genuine calls were reported, a movement of 48\nactual calls, up from 700, an increase of approximately 6.4%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There were an additional 28 malicious false alarms for the\nyear, up from 80, and the parish\u2019s firefighters were called for a total of 331\nspecial services, an additional 15 from 2017\u2019s 316.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe will be ramping up our public education programmes,\nespecially in schools. The schools or students represent a wider cross-section\nof the communities, and by giving them the information, we are guaranteed it\nwill reach within the homes and the communities at large,\u201d stated the\nDivisional Head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Superintendent Haughton is appealing for a greater fire\nconsciousness from the parish, especially the perpetrators of these malicious\nfalse alarms. \u201cPersons need to desist from this act as it adversely affects\nstaff morale, especially from communities where there is a repeated offense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We would definitely not want to have an instance of the boy\nwho cried wolf,\u201d the Superintendent said in closing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Mavrick Wynter<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The St. James Division of the Jamaica Fire Brigade has seen an increase in emergency calls for the year 2018, compared with the previous year. The report follows a total of 1,244 documented fire calls for the year 2018, a 5% increase from 2017, which recorded 1180. In an interview with the Divisional Head of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2070,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[271,1070,509,1072,1071,23,182,30],"class_list":["post-2069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-uncategorized","tag-fire","tag-fire-brigade","tag-jamaica-fire-brigade","tag-malicious-calls","tag-man-arrested","tag-news","tag-protests","tag-western-jamaica"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2069"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2069\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2071,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2069\/revisions\/2071"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}