Five Years Later, Belize City’s Fire Service Still Waiting for a Permanent HQ

Five years after Belize City’s National Fire Service headquarters was sold, the department remains split across multiple locations.

Minister of Public Service and Disaster Risk Management Henry Charles Usher confirmed this morning that the permanent new headquarters is still awaiting funding.

“When the National Fire Service headquarters was sold by the UDP administration, there was no plan for it. There was nowhere for the National Fire Service to go. They had been begging, lodging at the Marion Jones Stadium, a place that was not suitable for the National Fire Service,” Usher said. 

Shortly after, the department was once more forced to relocate in September 2025 to Calle Al Mar Street, though that space houses the administrative part of the service.

The Cleghorn Street property was sold to Atlantic Bank for $2.8 million in 2020, which forced firefighters out by December of that year. A 2020 government release had criticised the original Cleghorn Street facility as poor value for money and cited its cramped size and limited room for emergency deployment despite an $8 million construction cost in 1992.

“We are preparing and we are in plans now to get the new National Fire Service headquarters built very close to the Eleanor Hall building. There’s a land designated there,” Usher said.

He added that the Briceño government is still looking for funding, but once built, the new site would consolidate the administrative headquarters, mechanical yard and training yard under one roof.