The bush fires have start­ed with a burn­ing fury in Trinidad. Through­out the coun­try, al­most every day the air is filled with smoke: in the morn­ing, at noon, in the evening and even at nights. This has be­come the his­to­ry of the dry sea­son in this coun­try. Last year the Trinidad and To­ba­go Fire Ser­vice re­ceived hun­dreds of emer­gency calls for bush fires alone. This year will be no dif­fer­ent. The con­tribut­ing con­di­tions to fu­el a bush fire are at its peak. The large amount of veg­e­ta­tion, the dry­ness of this veg­e­ta­tion, the hot day­time tem­per­a­tures and the windy con­di­tion we ex­pe­ri­ence at this time of the year.

All that's need­ed is a fire to be lit, de­lib­er­ate­ly or ac­ci­den­tal. Throw­ing a light­ed cig­a­rette out a car win­dow has caused many a bush fire along the road­ways. Even dis­card­ed glass bot­tles cou­pled with the sun­light can cause a fire. Some of the ar­eas that are most at risk are the aban­doned Ca­roni cane­fields. The bushy ar­eas along­side the roads and, of course, our pre­cious forest­ed ar­eas. So what can we do to pre­vent these fires that are dai­ly be­com­ing a risk to life, prop­er­ty and the en­vi­ron­ment?

The Fire Ser­vice needs to ed­u­cate the pub­lic on caus­es, pre­ven­tion and penal­ties of these fires by util­is­ing the me­dia. Bush fire pre­ven­tion plans, like the ones used in Aus­tralia, need to be set up, be­cause an out-of-con­trol bush fire may be the next dis­as­ter in Trinidad. Peo­ple have al­ready re­turned to their homes to find their hous­es burnt to the ground, due to bush fires, and busi­ness­es have al­ready count­ed their loss­es as well. It may just be a mat­ter of time, if it has not al­ready hap­pened, be­fore lives are lost due to bush fires. I there­fore ap­peal to the pub­lic to stop the de­lib­er­ate light­ing of these fires.

Joseph Bridglal

Via e-mail