Dump fire stops school sports day
(CNS) UPDATED: Sports Day for pre-school students at Cayman International School was cancelled Friday due to a major blaze at the dump in George Town in the scrap car yard. A government release about the fire, which ignited sometime around 8:30am, said fire fighters and staff from the Department of Environmental Health (DEH) were working to fight and contain the fire at the recycling plant adjacent to the main landfill.
Officials said crews from the Cayman Islands Fire Service arrived at the site at 8.32am to work on a deep seated fire among the scrap cars. The DEH and plant operators are now working to move surrounding vehicles that are not on fire to allow the crews to extinguish the blaze.
The Royal Cayman Islands Police Service helicopter has been deployed to help fire fighters pinpoint the heart of the fire with its thermal imaging cameras.
A large smoke plume is visible from various locations around Grand Cayman, and officials warned that with the current variable winds, surrounding residents and business affected by this smoke plume are advised to keep windows and doors closed. Properties with air-conditioning units should monitor their effectiveness and ensure smoke is not drawn into buildings.
“This situation is being closely monitored by all concerned agencies and further updates will be provided from the scene as the crews continue work to contain the fire,” officials said about the serious and dangerous blaze.
While pre-schoolers were sent home after their sports day was cancelled at Cayman International School, it is not clear whether or not older students are still attending class.
Meanwhile, CNS understand that fire-crews were also working last night to contain another brush fire, which ignited in Bodden Town and quickly got out of control. However, there has been no official confirmation from the authorities about that blaze.
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Category: Local News
How can the parents knowingly send their child/children to this school when it is right next to a dump that catches on fire? How is there not a lawsuit against Dart already? The next PTA meeting will be interesting.
You honestly can’t blame DART and the school for the government’s mismangement of the dump, seriously? Put the blame where it belongs
With the parents who enrolled their kids in a school next to the dump.
Give us the facts/truth please. Please tell us who controls and manage the area that is on fire. Just saying the dump is on fire is not the whole truth!!
Perhaps residents of Lakeside should be compensated.
And George Town, and South Sound.
Why? Did they not see the dump when they bought their unit? Very hard to hide a dump.
I had to drive by this burning toxic transfer today. I live very close to this monster. Will it affect my future health, my life expectancy? Is that unknown worth my emotional attachment to this island? I am wrestling. Loyalty, at what cost? ………………………
So the homes the Darts are building near the dump will be OK..
Prevailing winds homie.
Yes they will.
How could CPA allow a school and a residential neighborhood next to a dump? I see many lawsuits in the future for the government.
Did the government hide the dump when people bought properties next to a dump? Or put their kids in a school next to a dump. How about some personal responsibility ?
This will happen over and over again, no one cares though,
Not to fear Minister Seymour is on top of it.
3:41 Hopefully literally.
And so while the debate about the port rumbles on, the real problem of the dump is staring the whole community in the face, come on Cayman; get it together.
The port is still an issue and we don’t want it. It will also cause environmental destruction. No one is disagreeing with you that the dump needs to be fixed but saying that the port is not of environmental concern and should be ignored and just built is not acceptable.
If only
Literally we hope.
Are we going to see people marching the streets tonight?
No. Caymanians are a totally passive people and will take anything.
Very passive. Its unreal.
We’re streaking, through Heroes Square!
Those CIS children are all going to start dropping like flies from all the poisons in their little systems from growing up next to that dump. Anywhere else in the world that would be illegal for a reason!
Agreed. CIS should be closed. What did they think they were doing building a school next to a long established and growing dump!
It’s absolutely shameful. All of these children and their families are going to suffer terribly once they all start getting sick.
Government is going to have major lawsuits.
Caveat emptor, buddy. People are not only choosing to send their kids there, they are paying a lot of money to do so.
Capping a flawed landfill, filled with toxins, and methane potentialities, doesn’t add the missing ecological liner, or a competent filtration system for the ongoing water table leachate going into the sound. It also entombs future WTE feedstock, while not addressing the continuing need for an alternate, lined waste management facility for a neighbourhood that will surely not want one next door. Our government is united in ineptitude, having ignored the landfill problem for over two decades. Neither “party” can blame the other, but we can justifiably blame both.
The person who might have been in the best position to get this problem under control post-Ivan is now an ‘independent’ MLA and a vociferous critic of his former colleagues in government – that’s politics for you!
Try 5 decades. The current dump began in the 70’s. At least there are some actions to remedy the situation. If only the actions could progress quicker.
Future WTE feedstock? How many fires have happened at the dump over the last 25 years? That WTE feedstock you’re talking about is nothing but char and ash, there’s no significant calorific value in that, but dream on!
We the people are to blame for electing such idiots! The majority in Cayman don’t care or really know what happens to garbage once it leaves their yard. Thirty some years ago islanders used to burn their trash in backyard heaps, now it burns on the big heap. Not much has changed.
It was lit before 7:00 AM. I guess they just didn’t notice it until 8:30
As A Student, I Can Assure That Up To High School, Students Were Evacuated
Interesting Use Of Capital Letters
Why Thank You
A student of which esteemed institution that doesn’t educate the basics of grammar and writing skills? Asking for a friend – oh and the well being of my kids and future generations….
Where can you buy 2.5pm masks on island?
try Amazon prime and have someone take a flight to Cayman.
Properties with air-conditioning units should monitor their effectiveness and ensure smoke is not drawn into buildings!
That’s Cayman…………………
Too bad all the legal fuss being wasted on the PORT Issue could not be redirected to our real issue, this PILE of Insect infested waste. I will guarantee you not one of the people involve in fighting the PORT development have been to the top of this PILE! Wonder what the list of invisible poisons are in that cloud we saw today? Tourist got a show, eh? North Sound Fish dead from leaks? Firefighters future health at stake? How many fires have been there in the last decade?
And why would people opposed to the port be compelled to go to the top of the landfill? You want to beat them up for opposing govt in the port because they are not engaged with the dump?? Bet YOU haven’t been to the top either – you so exercised about it why don’t you get off your keyboard and launch your own referendum about the dump instead of beating on others.
You get offended? I have been to the top.
*Plot twist* How many people in favour of the port have been to the top of this pile….
I am opposed to the port. I have been to the top of the pile.What is your debunked point?
WOW
The Cayman Islands is turning into a dumpster fire
DART is building the most expensive residential, most expensive hotels, most expensive office buildings and most expensive elite school. He is not building for Caymanians and definitely not the average Caymanian. Imagine paying that much money for school and you have your kids breathing, drinking and playing in and next to that environmental disaster.
I would never send my kids there. Don’t want to deal with health issues later on.
CIS that is
Who in their right mind would build a school at the foot of a dump?
Someone who intended to move the dump…
Someone who fully believed the dump was going to be moved.
To where? My back yard?
Hopefully
Aye, there’s the rub.
At the time the school was built the CIG had stated that the dump was going to be removed. The people who built the school believed that falsehood.
No one has ever said the dump was going to be removed.
How is a dump allowed next to a school in the first place?
Those kids are going to have serious health issues.
Really? The dump existed PRIOR to the school being built. Your question should read “How is a school allowed next to a dump?”
Dart wasn’t going to be able to sell house next to it so he put the school there as a buffer.
Yes We Will
Apparently mental health issues are starting with an obsessive compulsive use of capitals at the beginning of each word in a sentence regardless of how ignorant it appears to the reader…
But yeah, let’s build a cruise berth facility.
Natrue!
Hmmm. Another problem at DEH. And yet the person that all blame was cast upon was forced out. He has been gone for over a year yet let me say it again yet all of the “problems” with DEH are still there. Mind you, under the previous Director’s remit, a vehicular fire never occurred. Why, cause he was hands on and made sure that things were done the right way under his watch. Now you have allot of newbies that have no clue and are overwhelmed at trying to impress that workers are rushing and taking short cuts in fear, and because these proud boys ain’t coming out to get their hands or shoes a little dirty to do their job. Wonder if the old Director will still be blamed for this? Ironic but true…..This is a hot mess!
uh-oh, spaghetti-o…
I would urge everyone to stay inside with their A/C off during this fire which is currently burning just next to the landfill at the auto recycling centre. Unfortunately this location is arguably more toxic for a fire due to the lead from batteries, mercury and other toxins associated with vehicles. It is very serious and will have a negative impact on your health.
The fire is pretty small, I don’t see why everyone is so worked up. There must be dozens of fires like this in New York City everyday.
We want them to burn the stuff eventually anyway.
LOL
12:03, You obviously don’t know New York City.
Therein lies the problem………
I was at Kirk’s Market this morning and the smoke from this fire was acrid, noxious and no doubt toxic – I had to run to and from my car. Who the hell knows what dangerous chemicals and other material are burning?
Forget the Port and FIX THE DUMP!!
Morons in charge!
Can’t imagine how much worst it was at the new fosters at camana bay that is right there!
Actually Kirks is way closer – probably 59% nearer. And down wind.
63 % actually
Perfectly fine ol boy. Nice bright smoke free day in Camana Bay.
Protect our environment for she protects all of life on Earth.
Thankfully, blowing right over Joey’s house.
Fix the damn dump!
He’s in Jam. Telling them how to fix infrastructure lol.
That is what is so incredible.
He’s probably off island galavanting and drinking fine wine so he doesn’t care.
A ticking time bomb, but nobody gets it in CIG.
Third world management gives you third world results. You really can’t expect more from these guys. They went to schools that are failing now. Now a really good school has to close up because of their incompetence. Cayman Islands. CIG 20 years behind and falling back more each day.
With sustained winds from the North and North East assured for the next 48 hours there is no reason for the school to close anything at CIS on account of smoke today. If there is a risk of a large explosion, then government knows something we do not. Otherwise, what are we teaching the snowflakes?
Vote No
The dump the dump the dump is on fire
We don’t need no water let the m*****f***** burn
In effective, efficient, and eloquently expressed solution.
Of course it would not be allowed. A couple of hundred million dollars in contracts to burn the stuff in a very expensive furnace is a preferred option to fundamentally achieve the same thing.