Nothing of Value Destroyed in Fire at CSO

Nothing of value was destroyed in a fire occurring at the Central Sorting Office (CSO) on South Camp Road in Kingston, on Monday (October 23).

Operations at the facility were suspended for the day and members of staff and other persons occupying the building were evacuated.

Several individuals were taken to hospital for complications related to smoke inhalation.

Deputy Postmaster General, Carey Brown, told JIS News that quick action by employees who raised the alarm, and the Jamaica Fire Brigade (JFB), enabled the fire to be quickly extinguished.

He said sparks from the fire, which started on the outside of CSO, ignited flammable material inside a storage room in the building.

“Nothing of any value was destroyed. We tried to extinguish it while the JFB was on the way. We couldn’t extinguish it, and we tried to contain it as best as we could. The quick action of staff prevented it from escalating and the JFB was timely on the scene, and that made a big difference,” he said, noting that the fire was contained to that room.

Minister without Portfolio in the Office of the Prime Minister with responsibility for Skills and Digital Transformation, Senator Dr. the Hon. Dana Morris Dixon, who visited the scene, told JIS News that there was no damage to the NIDS Card Centre which is housed at the facility and the CSO’s general areas.

“Thankfully, because of the Fire Brigade’s response, we do not have any damage to the rest of the building; the only issue is smoke throughout the rest of the building. The Postmaster General told me that the team will be rearing to go… tomorrow (October 24)… and it will be business as usual as much as possible,” she said.

The JFB was conducting cooling down operations and doing assessments to determine the cause of the fire.