Rain brought tem­po­rary re­lief for res­i­dents of Ma­haica in Point Fortin yes­ter­day, as they con­tin­ued to bat­tle the ef­fects of a bush fire smoul­der­ing through the tar sands of their oil-rich com­mu­ni­ty.

Res­i­dent Althea Williams said the in­ter­mit­tent driz­zles of rain did not to­tal­ly ex­tin­guish the flames.

“We are try­ing to cope as best as we can. It’s been more than a week since the fire has been burn­ing and we are now pray­ing that by the time the April show­ers come the fires will be ex­tin­guished,” Williams told the T&T Guardian.

Fire­fight­ers have used foam and wa­ter to ex­tin­guish the fire, which some res­i­dents say is the worst they have ever seen in their com­mu­ni­ty.

Williams said in the past, if a fire de­vel­oped, Petrotrin’s fire de­part­ment was al­ways on hand to ex­tin­guish it im­me­di­ate­ly. How­ev­er, she said this re­cent fire was left un­at­tend­ed and it was on­ly when it got out of con­trol that the au­thor­i­ties took ac­tion.

May­or of Point Fortin Ab­don Ma­son said the fire was be­ing fought from the in­cep­tion by fire­fight­ers but he said it kept reignit­ing. The smoke en­veloped sev­er­al ar­eas, in­clud­ing Wil­son Street, Richard­son Street, Mor­ri­son Street, Tay­lor Street, Canaan Road, Archer Street and Vol­un­teer Road. Sev­er­al pen­sion­ers and young chil­dren who were un­able to cope with the blind­ing smoke have fled the area.

Fire of­fi­cials said yes­ter­day they are keep­ing a close watch on the area.

—Rad­hi­ca De Sil­va