Tonight, the residents from Valley Of Peace are still struggling to breathe freely after a weekend cloud of smoke and soot smothered their village.
It's a cloud that also went viral on social media with villagers crying out for help under what they say is a threat to their health, especially the most vulnerable among them.
7News made the trip West this morning to see the dissipating smoke for ourselves and tonight Cherisse Halsall tells us why, even now, air quality in Valley Of Peace is still very much compromised.
This is what the Valley Of Peace Gas Station looked like over the weekend, an almost post apocalyptic vision filled with smoke and soot.
Only this wasn't because the world was burning, It's just one small village, Valley Of Peace, that is unfortunate to be caught between two industrial cane fields.
This morning when we returned to that same gas station it was still muggy but nothing like it had been when the fields were on fire.
That's where we met Fidel Mendoza, a man who says he can at his limit, sick and tired of shifting around his village with the wind if only to avoid suffocation.
Fidel Mendoza, Resident, Valley Of Peace
"All over the place it was smoked ashes from the tree that just started to release, you have to keep your house closed because everything goes In there. One day I left my room open and like hell, when I came back everything was dusty, lone leaves, boring of leaves and the breeze that's blowing just had the place very contaminated, very hazardous for your health, especially for the young children."
Cherisse Halsall:
"Are you concerned that a lot of this smoke is toxic?"
Fidel Mendoza, Resident, Valley Of Peace
"I know that it's very toxic because my baby, I have a young little baby girl that is 2 years and two months and when she starts to inhale all that smoke she just starts to cough, her eyes get red red red red. So, sometimes I have to leave or I go to Belmopan and come back, yeah cause it's very bad for my baby and especially at that age they are very delicate, yeah."
Cherisse Halsall:
"But you live there how do you move out of the place where you live?"
Fidel Mendoza, Resident, Valley Of Peace
"I just like come on my cycle and I come to relax for three four five hours until it calms down but it still hasn't really calmed down because at night it continues to burn but then you aren't seeing it at night, you need to be home at night time. And especially they like to light it in the evening, sometimes in the evening they like to light it, light the fire, yeah."
Cherisse Halsall:
"To your knowledge, which company is doing this?"
Fidel Mendoza, Resident, Valley Of Peace
"Well, both companies, the Valley of peace farm and Santander, because both of them own, cane field on the road side."
"They don't even worry about it when you tell them. It's like hell no, we don't want to hear anything from you, you understand they are very chances back here because like it seems to them that they own the authority so if you do try to call anybody they don't even pay you know mind, forget bout that."
And what about school-age kids, the ones who walk and ride their bikes to the village schools, for them the smoke is becoming an obstacle to their education.
Teresa Alas, Resident and Primary School Teacher
"During the school days too it affects the students because they, like recess time they are playing outside and then the smoke when they inhale it is very toxic and even their eyes get very itchy or watering because of the smoke."
"We can tell students but as you know students are very hyperactive and they, we can't keep them settled on one spot they always even like today I told them to go and go under the shade because the sun is very hot and still they are very impatient and very hyperactive and they want to be up and down running playing."
"A lot of them are missing school today because of the, I think it's pollution the air pollution that deals with the cough and sneeze and even the fever they catch because of that."
"The whole village was like ver smoky and apart from the hot heat, it's very like unpleasant because the environment is very like you can't stay under not even under the shade because you feel it and I worse with the smoke that you have to close up everything."
We asked Teresa whether the smoke has made her consider moving away from the village.
Teresa Alas, Resident and Primary School Teacher
"Well we can't consider that but it is hard for us and I feel it for like the family that lives on the other side from where they have the cane farm."
One of those is the family headed by Blanca Rodriguez, a mom of three who says that the coughing has become incessant even preventing her and her children from sleeping at night.
Blanca Rodriguez, Resident, Valley Of Peace
"It's not right now that this has started, it's been a good while now and it's affecting us a lot. Ever since these people started burning it affects my kids, and it affects me because I am allergic to smoke and dust, yes and right now it is bothering us a lot especially when night comes, wow, we can't sleep because of shortness of breath and the cough that affects us a lot."
Cherisse Halsall:
"Your kids are coughing?"
Blanca Rodriguez, Resident, Valley Of Peace
"Mhmm, they are coughing, he didn't go to school this morning for the same reason. Mhm of the smoke. So I decided for him not to go, all night without sleeping. Right now since this smoke is. coming it's almost going for a month for a month now, yes."
Cherisse Halsall:
"Have you taken the kids to a doctor? What did the doctor say?"
Blanca Rodriguez, Resident, Valley Of Peace
"Ehmm, right now I haven't taken them to be sincere for me it doesn't make any sense so I try to give them fever grass and different teas natural tea, because if the smoke continues, how will it help?"
"It doesn't matter if I can give them all types of antibiotics, it won't make any sense. I have lived here ever since, I am a Belizean, I was born here and to be real with you we have been suffering from this smoke, well, a lot of changes actually because from the time that I remember the people would burn some smoke, it would be far and they would always be trees for it not to continue, right, and em, but now and eve like the breeze, you see when the breeze comes like it just moves the fire, uh huh, so a lot of changes it's not natural anymore."
"We are not living, breathing freely, it's, there is no words actually to describe it like how it was like maybe 7 years ago."
And today we saw newly harvested fields poised for burning. It's a process that makes re-planting easier but as we've shown you it's putting an entire community at risk.
Juan Arias, Chairman, Valley Of Peace
"Very hard especially for the elder people and the young, the kids too because it's just very very dark and it happened around 2 o'clock in the afternoon and it was very dark, you couldn't even see the road because in front of the gas station. The gas station they even had to close the gas station because they were worried that the fire was going toward the gas station."
Cherisse Halsall:
"Sir, as the chairman have you reached out to the company to say, hey my people are suffering."
Juan Arias, Chairman, Valley Of Peace
"All the people were complaining about it. N.E.M.O got to know it and they were calling me too but it's pretty hard because if we don't have a conversation with the company then you can't find a solution because every time it will happen the same thing."
And the chairman says it's not just the air, the filth from the burning cane fields will eventually make it into the water supply as well.
Juan Arias, Chairman, Valley Of Peace
"I live much further from the edge of the village but I was suffering and we suffer because most of our people use to receive rainwater and you can see all the roofings of our houses all black with Carbon of the sugar cane leaves and now it looks like the rainy season is coming and the water will come out dirty now."
"Looks like the company is not putting the right attention to the because what is causing the fire is that they burn the sugar can fields and the fire jumps out of the sugar cane fields and that is what is happening right now and I understand that this is very dry right now and easily fires can catch anywhere because I know almost the whole country is suffering from smoke right now but sometimes in some areas it's much worse."
7News reached out to representatives from both Valley Of Peace Farms and Santander but up until News time we had not received a response.
We'll keep following this story.
