Recurring blaze frustrating firemen

Firefighters from the Rollington Town Fire Station say they are frustrated because of the number of calls they receive to put out fires on the premises of a former recycling plant on Victoria Avenue in Kingston.

District officer for the Jamaica Fire Brigade, Nigel Cox, told THE STAR that every day for the past week they have gotten calls about fire on the premises.

“Every day we have to come here. This is an act of arson and extortion. What they were conducting here is a recycling area, and hoodlums from the area wanted the man [who operates the recycling plant] to give them money of undesirable sums and he refused, so dem just get vex and keep lighting,” he said.

Despite several attempts to speak with the owner of the premises, THE STAR was unsuccessful. 

And when asked if there were any reports of extortion, Inspector Maxine Haymen from the Kingston Central Police Station said she has no such reports.

“We have a report of a fire there, but I don’t know about that [extortion],” she said.

Meanwhile, Cox said that there are times when the firemen get up to three different calls for the day, and he believes their resources are being wasted. 

“Sometimes for the day, about two, three shifts are here. This is a waste of resources. I am going to ask my superiors to talk to the KSAMC (Kingston & St. Andrew Municipal Corporation) so they can clean out the area. We can't manage this anymore,” he said.

“It’s not like we don’t want to respond to the call, but for something like this, it is too much. As you can see, it actually burn out yah now. It a recurrent decimal, and we plan to get to the bottom of it. It can’t continue,” he said.