Officers at the Anguilla Fire and Rescue Services, who seldom get recognition for their work, were commended on Monday this week for their painstaking task to put out a major fire at the Corito Landfill several days ago.
The commendation came from Her Excellency the Governor, Christina Scott, who has responsibility for security on the island. She was at the time visiting the Fire Officers as they sought to put an end to the light smoke emitting from the still smoldering solid waste elements.
“I wanted to take the opportunity to go and thank the officers of the fire service for their tremendous efforts on Saturday in responding to the Corito fire,” she told The Anguillian. “It was one of the biggest fires that they had to respond to in recent times, and there were some interesting issues in relation to where it was, the speed at which it was spreading and the wind they had to deal with as well.
“So I wanted to go and thank them in person for their really hard efforts. A lot of them came in on their days off and worked very long hours in quite difficult circumstances. What was great was to see their energy and enthusiasm to the task, their commitment to it, and how pleased they were to be able to deploy the new fire tender which recently arrived from the UK.
“They were also very reflective on some of the lessons that ought to be learnt. There were some issues that came up and were still a challenge, and they have a lot of ideas how to improve their response next time and how they work with other agencies as well. It is good to know that they are learning from the experience and also that they got some satisfaction from it.”