Tonight the Belize City dump is still on fire. The National Emergency Management Organization says that while the area known as the new dump is somewhat under control -the fire at the old dump continues to rage. It is roughly 20 acres and NEMO Coordinator Noreen Fairweather and Ministry of Works personnel were in the air yesterday and on the ground today. Fairweather says they’ve decided to use a dredge to put out the fire.
Noreen Fairweather, NEMO Coordinator
“We are bringing in a dredge that will push a lot more water into the area. Because of the extent of that and the area that it covers, the fire trucks cannot get into the area and even if they did, they do not have the capacity to be able to extinguish those fires efficiently. So we are having a dredge that can pump water into the area and basically we are going to be flooding out that area of the old site that is under fire and that is smoking right now as we speak.
What we’ll need to do is cut a culvert across the road so that we can access the water from Burton Canal which is the shortest distance really to get to the area and pump the water into the area, from Burton Canal directly into the site. We believe that with that activity going on it will take at least an initial two days to days to have it under control, at least the areas that are flaming and are hot. We will have those under control in two days. So that will decrease significantly the amount of smoke that you see now with the new site out and that under control in the next two days there should be a lot more visibility and a lot less smoke in this area.
We will do the crossings on the road tonight when there is less traffic on the road and we will have the dredge in place and we believe that by midday tomorrow, we can have the dredge operating and starting to pump into the site.”
Keith Swift,
In hindsight do you think that maybe if NEMO had stepped in earlier that maybe it wouldn’t have gotten to this stage which is a crisis?
Noreen Fairweather,
“I wouldn’t say it is a crisis. It’s a terrible inconvenience and a health risk to the people that live in the area but the way things work in terms of when you deal with any emergency and anything causing a threat, the municipality or the area, the people who first respond to what is happening and when that situation is beyond their control, that is when NEMO comes into play which is exactly what happened. If they cannot handle the situation on their own then they bring the national body to assist them.”
Keith Swift,
So they should have gone for help sooner.
Noreen Fairweather,
“I believe they came for help when they felt they needed assistance.”
And even with the dredge, Fairweather says it will take four to five days for the fire to be fully extinguished.