As Saint Lucia observes fire prevention week under the theme – ‘Fire Won’t Wait. Plan Your Escape’, the Saint Lucia Fire Service (SLFS) has revealed that most residential fires on the Island occur in low-income homes.
“The majority of the fires that the fire department responds to emanate in homes, and interestingly, it’s low-income homes,” Assistant Divisional Officer Mabius Francis disclosed in a Government Information Service (GIS) interview.
“Our statistics indicate that approximately one hundred and ten or so fires happen in homes, and again, I am saying, it’s in low-income homes – very poor people becoming even poorer,” Francis stated.
“It behoves us to do something to alleviate that kind of stress on people,” the senior SLFS official observed.
He indicated that three or more individuals might occupy a typical home.
Francis explained that, at times, the fire department responds to fires in homes occupied by seven individuals.
“Could you imagine the ache it can create, the distress when you go to such a fire and you leave seven persons standing there with just their clothes on their back? ” He said.
“Everything is destroyed. Everything is gone,” Francis declared.
And he noted it’s a serious social issue for Saint Lucia.
Fire Prevention Week officially started on October 9.
But from October 3, the fire department has been reaching out through the media to residents of Saint Lucia with fire prevention information in Kweyol and English.
Francis said low-income households are the primary target of the SLFS outreach.
Headline photo: Mabius Francis
Like those little huts the CCC building all around Castries?
The statement is a racist one. Why use the term “low income house” what is the subjective meaning of that term? You all believe that racism only exist with the color of your skin? If so then those who believe it is so you are just stupid to the core. Why couldn’t you used the term poor electrical wiring, or pure carelessness when using hazardous items/device or lack of understanding danger because of their lousy behavior. What makes you think that the 5 pay check income earners house don’t burnt down eh?
Never a dull moment.
Racism
MERRIAM-WEBSTER DICTIONARY:
a belief that race is a fundamental determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.
DICTIONARY.COM:
a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human racial groups determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one’s own race is superior and has the right to dominate others or that a particular racial group is inferior to the others.
COLLINS DICTIONARY:
Racism is the belief that people of some races are inferior to others, and the behaviour which is the result of this belief. Racism also refers to the aspects of a society which prevent people of some racial groups from having the same privileges and opportunities as people from other races.
Probably should have said “flimsily constructed houses”, afterall many people on lower incomes, or no income live in plywood houses. Not racist, but reads as discriminatory ie against a class of people, not a race… although he did express empathy by saying how awful it was for those people who lost their houses.