Energy facilities urged to prepare for bushfire risk

The Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment is ad­vis­ing of bush­fire risk dur­ing the dry sea­son and is urg­ing en­er­gy fa­cil­i­ties to take mea­sures to ad­dress the threat.

Through its Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Co­or­di­nat­ing Unit, the min­istry said Trinidad is in the peak pe­ri­od of the dry sea­son. The min­istry said this pe­ri­od brings a risk of bush­fires across the coun­try.

It said en­er­gy fa­cil­i­ties op­er­at­ing with­in the bound­aries of the 14 Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions should take mea­sures to pro­tect in­fra­struc­ture, per­son­nel and sur­round­ing ar­eas from haz­ards linked to bush­fires.

The min­istry said fa­cil­i­ties should es­tab­lish fire trails around their com­pounds to cre­ate buffer zones.

It al­so ad­vised that dry veg­e­ta­tion and com­bustible de­bris should be cleared from op­er­a­tional ar­eas and sur­round­ing lands.

The min­istry said fire sup­pres­sion sys­tems should be checked to en­sure they are op­er­a­tional, main­tained and ac­ces­si­ble.

En­er­gy fa­cil­i­ties were al­so urged to re­view and up­date emer­gency re­sponse plans to en­sure the plans ad­dress bush­fire sce­nar­ios.

The min­istry said drills and staff aware­ness ses­sions should be con­duct­ed to strength­en re­sponse ac­tions in the event of a bush­fire.

The min­istry said the steps can re­duce the im­pact of bush­fires on op­er­a­tions, com­mu­ni­ties and the en­vi­ron­ment.

For in­for­ma­tion or as­sis­tance, the pub­lic and en­er­gy fa­cil­i­ties can con­tact the Trinidad and To­ba­go Fire Ser­vice.

The Fire Ser­vice can be reached at 625-2671 to 625-2675 or 226-TTFS (8837). The emer­gency num­ber 990 can al­so be used to re­port fires and re­quest re­sponse from the Fire Ser­vice.