By Jonique Gaynor, Staff Reporter

In keeping with the theme of this year's Fire Safety Week, the Jamaica Fire Brigade has been intensifying its efforts to lessen the number of bush fires and other practices that have harmful effects on the environment.

The Fire Safety Week began on October 22 and will run until October 28. The theme of this year's 10th anniversary celebrations is 'Preventing Fires ... Protecting the Environment', and according to Samuel McIntosh, deputy superintendent in charge of Fire Prevention, more effort was put into getting the public to realise the link between preventing fires and saving the environment.

McIntosh further told the STAR, "Governments throughout the world have been focusing on protecting the environment against bad practices. Because of what we see with bush fires, we thought it prudent to include this in our theme." The activities that will be carried out throughout this week will focus on making the public aware of proper environmental practices and will try to get people to pay attention to the environment.

Even though there was a 14% reduction in the number of bush fires over 2004 to 2005, McIntosh thinks a further reduction can be achieved. He says the Fire Brigade will be looking to encourage people to embrace fire safety techniques in their homes and communities, and hopes that this will eventually spread to a national level. He said, "If we could just get people to do something as simple as a smoke detector, it would be good."

As part of the celebrations, exhibitions will be held at the Half-Way Tree Fire Station and the Tom Redcam Library until Friday. There will also be a health fair at the York Park Fire Station today with representatives from the Ministry of Health, The National Family Planning Board, Jamaica AIDS Support and other agencies. The week will culminate with the annual fire-fighters' ball.