Fire crews work on deep-seated fires amid scrap metal
(CNS): Fire-fighters were still on site at the dump Friday morning after a night-long battle to control and contain the blaze in the scrap metal section that ignited yesterday morning. Teams were still excavating and extinguishing deep-seated fires, but officials said the situation was much-improved. Cayman Islands Fire Service crews worked tirelessly alongside the Department of Environmental Health staff over the last 24 hours using safe systems of work and effective monitoring to safely deal with the hazardous blaze, according to a GIS release. Chief Fire Officer Paul Walker said he was proud of the professionalism and dedication of his colleagues, who worked hard to put out the large and challenging fire.
“Our work with partner agencies has been fantastic and together we have minimised the impact from the fire on residents and businesses in the landfill area,” he said. “No injuries have been reported, which is down to our focus on deploying crews using safe systems of work with effective incident command procedures.”
A second excavator will be used today to help with the excavating and damping down operations, which will continue throughout today to minimise the chance of any re-ignition.
The government is scheduled to hold a press briefing at 2:00pm today, Friday, in order to announce “an update” on the government’s very slow progress on the proposed national waste-management plans.
It is more than four years since a consortium led by Dart’s general contractor, DECCO, was selected as the preferred bidder to tackle the dump situation and build a waste-to-energy facility, but no full agreement has been signed. At the beginning of this year the developer began capping Mount Trashmore but the proposed focus on reduce, reuse, recycle as well as composting has never materialised and there is as yet no news on the status of the WTE facility.
But with less than three weeks before Cayman goes to the polls, the government is planning an announcement.
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Category: Environmental Health, Health, Local News, Medical Health
Alden McLaughlin project.
Using water on some fires, like Class B and C fires, can actually make them more dangerous. Our fire service was graded a few years ago in a published report. They failed in almost every category beyond payroll billing. Very proficient in driving the vehicles and cleaning them…except during speed trials on Cayman Brac runway.
😂 Smack on!
The sweet smell of a great sorrow lies over the land
Plumes of smoke rise and merge into the leaden sky
A man lies and dreams of green fields and rivers
But awakes to a morning with no reason for waking
He’s haunted by the memory of a lost paradise
In his youth or a dream, he can’t be precise
He’s chained forever to a world that’s departed
Pink Floyd ‘Sorrow’ 1987 – could almost have been written for this!
I cannot believe those photos! If you ran a scrap metal tip like that in any first world country the health and safety authorities would jail you. This is like things used to be (and I can remember it) in the UK back in the 1970s. I’ve seen better organised recycling centres on tiny islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
Kudos to the brave firefighters for their hard work; then again they’ve had a lot of practice with fires at the dump!
I think the current CFO Paul Walker is a great leader and firefighter. I don’t know what the general opinion on him is, but thought I’d give him and the fire service a virtual pat on the back. Thank you!
No one will pat Mr Walker on the back because he is an expat.
Stop it! At least 12 people already did! I’m quite sure many others feel that way!
Totally agree. Look at what happened to first responders after 9/11. God only knows what is burning in that dump.
Personal protective equipment for firefighters, such as respirators, turnout gear, gloves, blankets and gas masks is designed to protect firefighters from serious injuries or illnesses resulting from contact with fire, chemical, biological, radiation, nuclear, or explosion hazards and more.
IT IS A REQUIREMENT, not an option, everywhere else in the world. Why people at the dump’s fire site were not protected?
#firefighterslivesmatter
Not to mention the fact that we all are breathing in the toxic PPM air every time it burns. We all should sue.
Listen…if you think you are better these finest fire fighters then why YOU become a fire fighter not armchair commentary! I have friends and family are fire fighters and they know what are they doing and they have all specialist equipment at their disposal. Go and crawl back to your cave!
I think they were advocating for fire fighters… why so angry?
They were not ‘advocating for fire fighters’. The OP was saying ‘the Cayman Islands Fires Service is incompetent, untrained, and doesn’t care about its staff’. Hence the anger of the responder who clearly feels the opposite.
You may want to reread the original comment without adding words that aren’t in it.
Oh here we fo with the ‘if you think you can do it better’ argument, it is so lame and irrelevant.
10:54 “Lions led by donkeys”? And I’m not referring to their boss, CFO Walker, but to the politicians (and that’s pretty much all of them) responsible for this environmental shambles.