Firefighters warn about illegal fires

RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­[email protected]

A stern warn­ing has come from Act­ing Di­vi­sion­al Fire Of­fi­cer Ansar Ali for peo­ple to re­frain from light­ing fires to clear agri­cul­tur­al lands af­ter an­oth­er bush fire erupt­ed along Rivulet Road in Cou­va, near the Point Lisas in­dus­tri­al re­gion.

Fire­fight­ers re­spond­ed to the blaze in the vicin­i­ty of a lay­down yard op­er­at­ed by the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go (NGC), close to the com­pound of Phoenix Park Gas Proces­sors Lim­it­ed, where pipes are stacked with­in a fenced area.

Ali said the in­ci­dent comes dur­ing the coun­try’s bush­fire sea­son, which runs from De­cem­ber 1st to June 30th, and warned that light­ing fires with­out prop­er au­tho­riza­tion is il­le­gal.

He urged mem­bers of the pub­lic to ob­tain per­mits from the Trinidad and To­ba­go Fire Ser­vice be­fore burn­ing grass or garbage.

Ali al­so cau­tioned against burn­ing in ar­eas where un­der­ground gas pipelines are lo­cat­ed, not­ing that agri­cul­tur­al burn­ing af­ter land is ploughed could dam­age buried pipelines and po­ten­tial­ly cause rup­tures and sub­se­quent fires.

He added that fire­fight­ers are re­spond­ing to dozens of bush­fire calls dai­ly dur­ing the dry sea­son, al­though up-to-date sta­tis­tics were not im­me­di­ate­ly avail­able.

Mean­while, En­er­gy Min­is­ter Roodal Mooni­lal said the fire oc­curred near one of NGC’s lay­down yards but as­sured that the coun­try’s gas in­fra­struc­ture re­mains safe.

“A bush fire in the vicin­i­ty of one of NGC’s lay down yards on Rivulet Road. A fire ten­der is there right now with no dan­ger to any of our pipelines,” Mooni­lal said.

A road­side ven­dor in the area al­so called on the NGC to clear the over­grown grass near the gas lines, warn­ing that the dry and windy con­di­tions make the area vul­ner­a­ble to fires.

The ven­dor said thick veg­e­ta­tion could eas­i­ly fu­el fires, pos­ing a risk to wildlife, farm­ers and mo­torists along the road­way if not ad­dressed quick­ly.