Articles

A woman at the hospital worrying about the condition of her spouse while calculating the finances required for his care. The Human Costs of Fire On May 27, 2026, just before 9 AM, welding work was being carried out on an armoured truck at a garage on South Camp Road in Kingston, adjacent to Guardsman Group-Beryllium Limited headquarters. Four men went to work that morning. A garage manager. A member of the operations team. An air conditioning technician. A welder. They had mo

Hotel Fire Safety Checklist that Saves Lives A fire alarm at 2:47 AM is not a management problem. It's a human one. Your guests are asleep in unfamiliar rooms. Some don't speak the language. Some can't move quickly. Some will panic. Some won't believe it's real. And your staff — trained or not — will be the only thing standing between confusion and catastrophe. The properties that handle fire emergencies well don't get lucky. They get prepared. Here's what that preparation ac

You may have walked past a fire extinguisher a thousand times without thinking about it. Let's shake things up a bit. You've probably walked past a fire extinguisher a thousand times without thinking about it. You've seen the green exit sign above the door and kept moving. You've sat through a fire drill, silently annoyed at the interruption, and gone straight back to your desk. And nothing happened. So everything was fine. That's the quiet illusion fire safety lives inside —

In the construction and development sector in our region, fire safety concept design is increasingly being carried out by individuals whose training equips them to respond to fires — not to engineer the prevention of them and those qualified in other engineering disciplines whose formal training does not extend to fire science, fire dynamics, or life safety performance design. The distinction matters enormously, and the consequences of confusing these fall squarely on buildin

Importance of Petrol Station Signs Most people notice the warning signs at petrol stations but rarely think about what they mean. "Switch off your engine." "No smoking." "No naked flames." "No congregation." "No parking." These aren't simply decoration. They exist because petrol stations routinely handle one of the most flammable substances used in everyday life. Behind every fuel dispenser, storage tank, and vent pipe is a carefully engineered safety system known as hazardou

Is Your Building Fire Safe? By Wayne Farquharson | Chief Technical Officer & Managing Director, Farbo Fire Safety Consultants Limited | Affiliate Member, Institution of Fire Engineers Your fire certificate is not a safety plan. It is a record that on a specific date, under specific conditions, a specific inspector found your building adequate for a certificate to be issued. That's it. After 35+ years in fire safety engineering — including service as Senior Deputy Superintende

A frank conversation about who owns what on your project — and where the real liability sits when a fire breaks out. The gap between design, structure and fire safety is real. Your architect didn't fail you. Your engineer didn't either. Yet buildings that pass inspection can still become deadly when fire breaks out. The reason often lies in a gap that only technical fire safety consulting and fire safety concepts are designed to address. This isn't an attack on architects, st

Image Courtesy of TVJ News On Saturday, May 30, 2026, a JUTC CNG bus caught fire at the Spanish Town bus terminal. Eyewitnesses reported flames coming from the rear of the vehicle. We weren't called to the scene — but as forensic fire safety specialists, we couldn't stay silent either. Fires are caused by defects, acts, or omissions. Before we name a probable cause, understand this: forensic fire investigation is not guesswork. It is observation, scene recreation, controlled

Image Courtesy of TVJ News On July 5, 2026, firefighters responded to a reported explosion at the Mother's franchise adjacent to the FESCO gas station on Beechwood Avenue in Kingston. Operations at the service station were temporarily suspended. No injuries have been reported, and the cause of the explosion has not yet been confirmed. But this incident raises a question that fire safety professionals have long understood — and that business owners, developers, and regulators

Fire Safety Consultant or Salesperson? In Jamaica and across the Caribbean, the demand for fire safety services is growing. New developments, tightening regulations, and increased public awareness have created a market — and like every market, it has attracted both professionals who genuinely know what they're doing and operators who are simply capitalizing on fear. Knowing the difference could protect your building, your business, and the lives of everyone inside it. The Cor