The Fire Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion is hope­ful that new­ly ap­point­ed Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Roger Alexan­der will grant them a meet­ing, as it claims the de­te­ri­o­ra­tion of Fire Ser­vice as­sets played a di­rect role in Sun­day’s fire, which de­stroyed a house in Princes Town.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, as­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Keone Guy said the ex­ec­u­tive wrote to Alexan­der a few days af­ter he took of­fice. While he has yet to re­spond, Guy re­mains op­ti­mistic.

The fire oc­curred around 4 pm on Sun­day at a two-storey house in Hill­side Gar­dens, Buen In­ten­to, just as the home­own­er, his wife, and their teenage son were prepar­ing to leave. Af­ter smelling smoke, the home­own­er dis­cov­ered a mat­tress on fire in a back bed­room and at­tempt­ed to ex­tin­guish it us­ing wet tow­els, but the flames spread rapid­ly. He suf­fered burns to his hand while try­ing to move the bed be­fore evac­u­at­ing his fam­i­ly.