Government to Enforce Law Against Lighting Fires

Persons, who continue to light fires indiscriminately, may soon face prosecution.

Minister of Local Government and Community Development, Hon. Noel Arscott, says that lighting fires is an illegal activity and the Government will now look at enforcing the law to curtail this practice.

The move comes against recent incidents of bush fires in St. Elizabeth, where farmers have been using the slash and burn technique to clear their land for planting.

One farmer has died as a result of a fire he allegedly lit on his farm, while there has been significant loss of crops and livestock.

The Local Government Minister, who was speaking at the official handing over of three new fire trucks to the Jamaica Fire Brigade (JFB) on Friday, July 18, at the Portmore Fire Station in St. Catherine, appealed for persons to desist from lighting fires during this period of drought.

“Please don’t go and try to do any slash and burn on your field. Millions of dollars of damage is bad, but the lives (lost)…it’s very dangerous so we are gonna appeal to our Jamaicans to desist from lighting any fires,” Mr. Arscott said.

State Minister in the Ministry, Hon. Colin Fagan, joined the appeal. “When we consider the dry conditions we are now experiencing, I wish to join the call for our citizens to stop doing these things that are likely to result in uncontrollable fires, things like the indiscriminate burning of garbage especially in built up areas,” he stated.

The acquisition of the new trucks will allow for one of the units serving May Pen, Clarendon to be re-deployed to St. Elizabeth.

Acting Commissioner of the JFB, Errol Mowatt, in welcoming the re-deployment, said that St. Elizabeth poses a “definite challenge” to the fire brigade. “It is not new for us to have many bush fires in St. Elizabeth. What we are seeing now, however, we have never seen before,” he stated.

The Acting Commissioner also called on citizens to desist from carelessly disposing of hazardous material, especially with the dry spell that the island is experiencing.

“Jamaica is experiencing a severe drought condition. It is quite windy, therefore any spark that is out there from whatever source can destroy hundreds of thousands of hectares of land, unfortunately it’s not only land (that is being affected),” Commissioner Mowatt said.