Holiday Entertainment Event Organisers Urged to Secure Safety Certificate from JFB

The Jamaica Fire Brigade (JFB) is reminding holiday party organisers that all major events require a certificate of safety from the entity.

Speaking during a recent Jamaica Information Service (JIS) ‘Think Tank’, JFB Public Education Officer, Superintendent Emeleo Ebanks, advised that individuals attending regular party venues should enquire whether the location has the requisite certificate of safety.

“All events need a certificate of safety… a permit from the Jamaica Fire Brigade. What that does is, in the event of any eventuality and persons decide to go to the courts, if you do not have this [certificate], then you are standing literally on no feet, because then you would not have had the venue tested and certified by the Jamaica Fire Brigade. So, legally, that is an obligation,” he said.

“What I normally do, and… this is something that we as firefighters practise, [is] you go into a space, take a look, do a visual of the space, [see] where your exits are… the nearest exit to you, wherever you are. In the event that something occurs, you must now consider the nearest exit and how quickly you can get to that exit,” the senior officer added.

Superintendent Ebanks noted that, in many cases of fires at entertainment venues, the devastation is not caused directly by the flames but by stampedes that occur as a result.

“Never, ever run. Walk briskly and get to the exit and then you move out. But you will only be able to do this if you have that knowledge of where the exits are and where your nearest exit is relative to where you are at a particular time,” he stated.

“If I’m in the movie theatre, I make sure I get there early enough where the lights are on so I can visualise and identify where all the exits lead to. So if there’s a particular incident in a specific space, you will know that you cannot exit from that area [via a particular route], but that [another] is available. That is how you visualise the space and make sure you plan for any kind of eventuality,” Superintendent Ebanks added.