KINGSTON, Jamaica — Jamaica’s public fire services are poised to deliver a dramatic upgrade to national emergency response infrastructure, with the Jamaica Fire Brigade (JFB) preparing to launch a purpose-built central emergency communication centre. The new facility is anchored by an automated station alerting system, engineered to slash response wait times for fire and rescue calls across every parish on the island.
The official announcement was made Wednesday by Desmond McKenzie, Jamaica’s Minister of Local Government and Community Development, during his 2026/27 Sectoral Debate address to the country’s House of Representatives. As part of the advance preparations for the new hub, 24 active firefighters completed specialized training in emergency telecommunications operations back in February. These trained personnel will staff the centre, which will initially operate out of the Waterford Fire Station located in the parish of St Catherine.
McKenzie outlined the core functionality that sets the new system apart from legacy infrastructure: “The defining advantage of this update is that the system sends instant alerts and emergency notifications directly to responding units. If an emergency call is processed within 64 seconds, the critical details are immediately transmitted to the appropriate fire station, and firefighters can be fully dispatched within 60 seconds.”
When added together, the total end-to-end response time from call receipt to dispatching comes out to just two minutes and four seconds – a benchmark that brings JFB’s operations fully into alignment with global emergency response best practices.
The transformative infrastructure project will roll out in two sequential phases, prioritizing the highest-need regions first. Phase one will focus on rolling out the system to fire stations across Kingston and St Catherine, two parishes that are home to Jamaica’s most densely populated residential and commercial communities and consequently receive the highest volume of annual emergency calls.
Phase two of the rollout is scheduled to launch at the start of the next national financial year, when the new communication system will be expanded to all remaining fire stations across the entire island. For the second phase, the main emergency communication hub will be relocated to the York Park Fire Station in central Kingston, the ministry confirmed.