Three firefighters have died by suicide this year.

And while all their problems were not known, questions can be raised as to whether their work environment contributed to their actions.

Sunday Newsday recently spoke to several firefighters who described their feelings of having to work without the equipment and resources that would allow them to save lives and livelihoods as heart-sick, demoralised, neglected, caught between a rock and a hard place, angry, and ashamed.

Deputy treasurer of the Fire Service Association of TT acting fire sub officer Dennene Mohammed said, he could tell many stories of officers using their own vehicles to respond to emergencies, fire officers having to use garden hoses to help control fires, or officers heading to the scene of an emergency to try to help in whatever way they could, even though they did not have the equipment to do what was expected of them, until appliances from other jurisdictions arrived.

“Fire officers do not take responsibility of responding to the public’s cries to emergencies lightly. Generally, they want to do their jobs to the best of their ability. They are committed.

“They will go way beyond and use whatever is available to deal with an emergency. An emergency is not going to wait until everything is in place, then to act. Somebody’s life is at risk. Somebody’s property is going up in smoke. So we have to use whatever we have available at the time to do that.”

He said it was not just the lack of tenders but there were challenges getting tyres and repairs for them and other vehicles. He said many of their vehicles were not roadworthy, so when responding to emergencies they had to decide between putting their lives, their crews and members of the public at risk, and responding to someone in peril.

Mohammed has been in the service for 20 years and there have always been resources the fire stations needed but did not get. He said there are 11 fire stations in the northern division and six have no tenders. Two stations in other divisions also have no tenders. At any time, there were hundreds of officers on duty, but there are about ten sets of breathing apparatus in the whole fire service and they have to be shared between officers. He said that was why, during the pandemic, whole shifts had to be quarantined as the disease was spread through the shared apparatus. Some officers eventually purchased masks from their own pockets.

[caption id="attachment_1035669" align="alignnone" width="1024"] In this file photo, a fire officer aims the nozzle at the roof of a builing on Shine Street, Port of Spain. -[/caption]

But knowing people are in distress, the officers often take the chance to help them. He said it is even more difficult for them to handle when lives are lost, especially society’s most vulnerable – the elderly, women and children.

He recalled there were officers who broke down in tears or were generally affected when a pregnant woman and several children died in a fire in Couva some years ago, and when three children were trapped in the