Wildfires continue to ravage the western and southern parts of the country. Over the weekend, a fire from Pine Hill, Toledo made its way over to the Copal Tree Farm, burning their citrus groves. According to Wil Maheia, the farms' workers came out from about 6 in the evening and fought back the fire until midnight. He told us more via Zoom today.
Wil Maheia, Copal Farms
"There were fires on Copali Land area that was the forest and the citrus grove, a lot of the citrus was lost as well as a lot of forest in the area but we really have to applaud the workers at Copal Tree Farms who just jumped out of their bed or whatever they were doing on a Saturday night, some of them were actually at church and left that to come fight the fires and preventing it from spreading to other areas. The fires in the entire Toledo continues to be of concern to all residents of Toledo so the workers were out there fighting, not only for Copal but for any other farms in the area."
We continue to appeal to the public to say, hey, you know, it's the dry season, don't light a fire. And especially the government to enforce the laws, because as you know, a lot of the fires are being set by people who just like are not conscious of exactly the impacts that these fires will have when it gets out of hand."
"So, you know, there's a constant appeal for people not to burn. It's too hot to burn, not to burn at this time. Hold off, you know, but it's kind of like a tradition in the South where people burn around this time."
"There need to be more supervision when burning is taking place. At this time fire is still a threat to the entire Toledo district. There's still smoke. Whenever there's smoke, there's a chance that there will be fire again, because all it takes is for the wind to pick up. And once the wind picks up, then there's a good chance that the fire will start again. So there's got to be constant monitoring and not only at Copali Farm, but through all the farms in the district, so many farmers, hundreds of farmers, lost crops, corn and a lot of other food crops."
So, you know, the pain will come, not even not only know, but in the future, when people depend on those corn for their food or the plantings and bananas and ground food for their diet."
And like he said, once there's smoke, there will be more fires. This afternoon, the flames caught the main sugar cane farm, destroying the crops. Here you can see bulldozers tying to tamp down the flames.
