FIREFIGHTERS in Spanish Town, St Catherine say outdated infrastructure and heavy traffic congestion are hindering their efforts to respond quickly to emergencies in the old capital.

According to Assistant Superintendent Delbert Sutherland of the Spanish Town Fire Station, emergency units waste time navigating small, congested streets to reach fires in some sections of the busy town.

A firefighter searches through what remains of the house on French Street in Spanish Town, St Catherine that was destroyed by Fire yesterday. (Photo: Bryan Cummings)

Sutherland was responding to allegations yesterday that firemen were slow to respond to a fire which razed a house on French Street in the town. Two children were rescued from the board building by neighbours who acted swiftly.

"One factor that prevented us from moving faster to the area is the state of the road in that French Street area; it is a big problem. In fact, all over the place in Spanish Town we couldn't get to the scene of the fire because of how the road situation is with the traffic... People just do as they like, they park all over the road and block up the whole of the place," said Sutherland.

"It's either they (authorities) break down that old burnt down court house that they don't have any use for and let people park over there, or something. The roads cannot stay like this, it prevents people from receiving emergency attention when they need it most," added Sutherland.

He said that the use of the 110 emergency number was also hindering them from responding quickly as the calls have to go through operators before they are passed onto the station.

"That process takes about five minutes before the call gets to us. By that time the whole place would have already gone up in flames," he said.

But while some residents lamented the "slow" response by the firefighters, most praised the heroics of two mechanics who stormed into the burning building and rescued the children.

"Trust me, if it was not for them they would burn up in the building today. Forget about the things them, that is the least," said a female resident, who told the Observer that the children's father was elsewhere in the community when the fire started.

"I don't know exactly what happened, all I saw was just pure smoke coming from under the roof and same time the older girl came out shouting 'fire'," said Damion Brown, one of the rescuers.

"We just rushed toward the building same time. I ran to the front and my friend ran to the back. The front door was locked but we managed to pull the two other children out the back."

Damage to the property was estimated at $250,000. Firefighters could not say what started the blaze.