LA TRINIDAD, Benguet – The municipal government and the municipal fire station is targeting the put up of some five fire substations in strategic areas in the municipality to ensure effective and efficient response to calls for assistance from residents to suppress fire incidents in their respective jurisdictions.
The proposed fire substations, to be constructed through available local funds or assistance from the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP), will in Beckel, Lubas, Km. 3, Alno and along the Pico-Lamtang Road to help in bringing closer to the communities firefighting and prevention services.
However, Mayor Romeo K. Salda admitted that the put up of the fire substations will depend on the availability of the funds from the local government, the BFP or members of Congress through legislating funding for the implementation of high impact development projects.
The municipal chief executive lauded the efforts of Secretary Luzverfida Pascual of the Presidential Legislative Liaison Office (PLLO) and Anti-Crime and Terrorism through Community Involvement and Support Party-list Rep. and Benguet caretaker Congress representative Eric Yap for facilitating the inclusion of the municipality as a recipient of one unit of the state-of-the-art fire trucks procured by the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) central office to equip the various fire stations around the country pursuant to the bureau’s modernization program.
According to him, the strategic locations of the proposed fire substations were determined upon the recommendation of the municipal fire station to ensure the deployment of the appropriate assets for the swift response to fire incidents.
Mayor Salda explained that the necessary assets of the municipal fire station should be deployed in strategic areas in the municipality for timely response to fire incidents.
The mayor expressed hope the BFP will continue to provide the needed firefighting equipment to the municipality for it to fully equip the proposed fire substations.
La Trinidad is one of the well-off municipalities of Benguet that form part of the Baguio-La Trinidad-Itogon-Sablan-Tuba-Tublay (BLISTT) growth area and it is heavily investing in important aspects of development to meet the increasing requirements of its constituency due to the expansion of development in municipalities adjacent to Baguio City.
The BLISTT growth area was an offshoot of the World Bank-funded study in 1995 on how to work out the expansion of development from Baguio City to the nearby towns of Benguet to prevent over development in the country’s undisputed Summer Capital.