Fire chief: It hurts

THE SEPTEMBER 3 tragedy at the Campus Trendz clothing store in Tudor Street, The City, where six young women died led to a public outcry against the handling of the blaze by the Barbados Fire Service.
Radio call-in programmes and letters to the Editor have featured criticisms and lament.
Associate Managing Editor Tim Slinger spoke to Chief Fire Officer Wilfred Marshall about the tragedy and the negative publicity his department has suffered.
WEEKEND NATION: This negative publicity, the first of its kind to a department that has given yeoman service . . . . How are you handling the situation?
Marshall: It would come across as if some people say we were useless, and that really impacted on the fire officers. They were fire officers who actually cried because they were on the scene working and they had given of their best.
They felt very hurt when all these negative comments were coming at them as if no effort was made to reach the victims in the fire.
When I said I couldn’t risk the lives of the officers, the officers had already risked their lives going into the fire and had gone as far in as they could have humanly gone.
It was definitely too hot to go any farther. Their clothing would carry them thus far to a certain temperature for a certain time. 
The impression coming from members of the public that the fire officers didn’t make any effort to save [the young women] was far from the truth. I can count on seven different teams that went into the building.
WEEKEND NATION: What made this fire different from others?
Marshall: The type of material that was inside the building and what is given as the cause of the [blaze] . . . . Because we had textiles in there [it] would ignite easily.
WEEKEND NATION: Questions have been raised about whether or not fire officers have the required fireproof suits?
Marshall: People were saying that we have fireproof suits; there are no such things as fireproof suits. We can go beyond serving the barriers but only for a certain amount of time.
The clothing that we use in firefighting is standard firefighting gear. You go into a situation, say 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and you could withstand five, six minutes, depending on the material . . . . But they aren’t robots; they are human beings; and after a time you can feel . . . and you have to back out.
WEEKEND NATION: What made this particular fire difficult and what has made it difficult for you as head of the Fire Service?
Marshall: In terms of the fire itself, the fact that we did not have an opening – whether it was a window or door – that we could have immediately made an entrance and not necessarily an entrance on foot but an entrance for firefighters to get water in from another source, that made it very difficult.
All the firefighting in the initial stages was from the front entrance and we were competing with the flames and the smoke . . . from that very entrance that was the same exit for the flames and the smoke. So we were fighting against a compact building. 
There wasn’t a window that we could have burst. Normally in other buildings you would see us burst windows or create openings to allow gases or smoke to come out. 
Therefore we had to create a hole at the back of the building, that took some time. The building was secured all around; but fortunately we found an entrance through Walkes Pharmacy that would allow us to get to the back of the building.
Once we had done that, we then sent the teams in from there and it was then we eventually found the victims.
Chances were very minimal for persons to survive in an atmosphere like that for long periods.
[The victims] couldn’t be in there an hour . . . . We were looking for two persons . . . and eventually found six. Nobody said they were six in there.
WEEKEND NATION: What about the suggestion that firefighters could have made an entry through the roof?
Marshall: By normal procedures we wouldn’t attempt to rescue anybody from the roof of a building. 
The position is that gases will rise once you create an opening in the roof. That is where fire will go. You always see fire officers tend to the bottom, because if there is any fresh air at all it is down there because gas is going to rise.
WEEKEND NATION: What have you learnt from this experience?
Marshall: I have seen how people can destroy the lives of others very easily by just expressing their own feelings, inexperience – having no knowledge of what is.
I have seen how that can negatively impact on the lives of other people, and that is something I have brought away from this whole situation.
WEEKEND NATION: What have you been doing to restore the confidence of your department?
Marshall: For those who have been affected, we have been trying to talk with the guys all the time, trying to keep them in tune with their own responsibilities.
I find that over the years firefighters have been witnessing some ugly scenes in terms of deaths and amputations. We have been able to get through that by talking to them . . . . There is a lot of talking with the counsellors . . . and they look forward to the next [experience] and they get stronger and stronger. 
WEEKEND NATION: If you were given a second chance at revisiting the Campus Trendz tragedy, would you have made different decisions?
Marshall: Knowing what I know now, the only thing I would have done differently is to go to the back of the building immediately. That would have put us in there earlier; but using the resources that we had available to us that would have still taken time.
That is why I said before we did as much as we could have.