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The Westmoreland Fire Department has charged that an increase in illegal electrical connections in the parish is putting the lives of firefighters at risk.Speaking at the regular general council meeting for the Westmoreland Municipal Corporation, Christopher Stone, the officer in charge of fire prevention in Westmoreland, said his colleagues have been facing challenges as it pertains to illegal connections in various areas across the parish, but mostly where there are informal settlements."From time to time whenever the fire brigade responds to structural fires or even bushfires, we would have pounced upon illegal electrical wires running across the ground and as a result of that it is posing some serious challenges to us as fire fighters as we try to extinguish fires," Stone told the Jamaica Observer.He said when firefighters attempt to extinguish fires with water they run the risk of getting electrocuted."Water is the main source of material that the fire brigade uses; so if a firefighter wants to use water to put out a fire, he or she would be putting their life at risk if the water comes in contact with that wire," explained Stone.He underscored that this issue is not new to the fire brigade, but it has been increasing over the past couple of months with firefighters seeing at least one case each month.Stone added that this issue has also been slowing down the response time of firefighters when they get to the scene of a blaze."Instead of dismounting a unit and attacking a fire quickly, if the crew notices that [illegal electrical connections] then they would have to work on isolating the wires to make the scene a bit safer in order to complete that firefighting operation. This would take a bit longer," noted Stone.