To­day marked the fifth day that res­i­dents of Ma­haica in Point Fortin have been cop­ing with thick smoke em­a­nat­ing from a huge bush fire. How­ev­er, they were giv­en a small “Bligh”.

Cur­rent­ly, the coun­try is ex­pe­ri­enc­ing one of its harsh­est dry sea­sons which has re­sult­ed in the out­break of many bush fires around the coun­try. This is no dif­fer­ent for the res­i­dents of Ma­haica in Point Fortin who, for the past five days have been cop­ing with the smoke from the near­by fire.

Since its out­break, fire of­fi­cers at­tached to the Point Fortin Fire Sta­tion have been try­ing to put out the fires.

The res­i­dents were giv­en a small mer­cy yes­ter­day as, for the first time since the fire be­gan on Sat­ur­day, they re­ceived re­lief when rain fell, lend­ing to the as­sis­tance of fire fight­ers who had been on the scene since 11 am, dous­ing the area with foam and wa­ter.

This helped sub­due the smoke long enough for the res­i­dents to take a deep breath of fresh air for the first time in days and to re­veal the source of the suf­fo­cat­ing smoke – the fires burn­ing un­der the ground due to oil seep­ages and tar sands present through­out the area.

The of­fi­cers at­tached to the Point Fortin Fire Sta­tion have been strug­gling to tame the fire due to a lack of re­sources how­ev­er to­day, they were loaned two ad­di­tion­al fire trucks from the Mon Re­pos fire sta­tion to help in­crease their ca­pa­bil­i­ties.

Af­ter the of­fi­cers left the scene, the smoke quick­ly be­gan to re­gain its strength.

Among those af­fect­ed are res­i­dents of Wil­son Street, Richard­son Street, Mor­ri­son Street, Tay­lor Street, Canaan Road, Archer Street and Vol­un­teer Road. The thick smoke re­duces vis­i­bil­i­ty and has a pun­gent odour re­sem­bling that of burn­ing crude. Many res­i­dents said they are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing chest and throat pains, ex­cru­ci­at­ing headaches and short­ness of breath.