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Fire Dept Defends Itself Against Claims of Being Late and Unprepared
posted (September 24, 2018)
Of course, with all that pain comes rage, and members of the Petillo family are unhappy with the performance of the fire department.

You'll know that the firefighters are often the first ones at whom the fingers are pointing. And, in this case, the grieving family say that the authorities response to this deadly fire was inadequate, with a lack of water, and lateness in arriving to the scene. Here are a few of their complaints:

Saturinno Petillo - Brother/Uncle of the Deceased
"They ran out of water. They had to bring an extra truck and try to do their best. Everybody was trying to give a hand. But it was too late."

Zelda Brown - Common-law Wife/Mother of Deceased
"We were calling and calling, no answer. We call the police and no answer. My brother-in-law jumped from upstairs and jumped in a pick up and he went at the fire station. Went there, woke them up, came back and the fire truck still didn't reach. He reached back before them. When the fire truck came, there no light, no siren, nothing. When they came they had less than 5 minutes of water. The truck ran out. Then they went for another truck and no water. We have a fire hydrant right there and it looks like WASA and someone closed it off, because the truck use to come and full there and I thank Mr. Denny, he got a call and he brought his water truck and that's how they put out that fire."

Reporter
"You are telling us that there is a fire hydrant down here that could have saved your son's life?"

Father of: Alfredo Petillo, deceased
"Yes, this could have saved my son's life, because this doesn't take 5 minutes to connect. You put the pipe, you connect the hose and there is a T that you turn on and right away. The fire truck that they have has half tank of water. That's why my child was burnt up. This they have to fix this."

Emmerson Nah - Eyewitness
"Orange Walk is very big to have these small trucks. Like I said this morning and I keep on saying it: why would you keep on parading down the streets and boasting 2 trucks that really is useless."

Norma Petillo - Sister-in-law/Aunt of the Deceased
"I am asking and pleading to whoever needs to get this information: we here in Orange Walk needs better services. The government or whoever needs to set in place things, please get it done. I am so happy that my family got out. Thanks to Emmerson and Leslie again. It could have been worse, but we are here."

This evening, we got a chance to challenge the heads of the National Fire Service with some of the family's complaints, and here's how they responded:

Ted Smith, Fire Chief, National Fire Service
"On receipt of the call which was 05:08 from the police, we responded and arrive on the gear. It wouldn't take long for us to respond and arrive. We would respond within 1-2 minutes the most. That was the case in this situation."

Reporter
"So you arrived on the scene and the father had already broken down the door to the barber shop?"

Ted Smith
"When we arrived on the scene, the structure was already engulfed. The father had already exited and returned to the structure. We did not meet him outside."

Reporter
"He didn't break the door to the barber shop you said to exit the first time?"

Ted Smith
"I said that and I said he had already returned to the structure."

Reporter
"My question now is that you couldn't access the building from the barber shop's entry?"

Ted Smith
"That's how he exited the building. But when we arrived, the building was already engulfed."

Reporter
"The entire building. So not just their entrance? That one as well?"

Ted Smith
"The information we received from our officers is that when we arrived, the building was already engulfed in flames."

Orin Smith, Station Officer, Fire Department
"Which simply means at that time there was no life within the structure at that stage of fire - open stage, free burning phase. The entire interior was engulfed in flames."

Reporter
"Alright, so it took you a minute to reach there. You are saying it would have taken a minute for the entire house to be engulfed in flames."

Ted Smith
"We do not know when the fire started. You need to understand that. We react to a situation. We don't know who makes the call and how long it took them to make the call and how long it took that call to reach us. We know when we get the call and therefore we responded. In our department its when you received the call, what response we have, what we find on the arrival and what we do. We cannot respond to a situation we know nothing of."

"For some reason it is expected that the fire service has unlimited water. We don't carry the sea, the canal nor the heavens with us when we responded to a structure and it's not being sarcastic. It being realistic. We have small trucks that we responded that has limited capacity. We have a country that has limited hydrants and very poor flow. Until these things fixed then there will be limitations. We did not have problems, we just had challenges. The 2 trucks went into the operations; one had 450 gallons of water, the other had 200 gallons of water. After exhausted its supply they were shuttling water from the nearest hydrants, the hydrants that were in operation. The distance was almost a mile, so there is no possibility of laying water from that particular area, so it has to shuttle water."

As we reported, this is the second family of 4 to die in a house fire. Back in June, 30 year-old Clara Nunez, her 6 year-old daughter, Natasha Nunez, her 14 year-old son, Allan Nunez, and he niece, 15 year-old Sherlett Bacab perished in a fire which destroyed island home, which was located in the Escalante Subdivision of San Pedro.

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