7 News Belize

And A Pall Hung Over The Land….
posted (May 17, 2011)
Today residents of the country's largest population center, which is Belize City, were walking around in a fog. Nope, no one spiked the water - it's a massive trail of smoke from forest fires which drifted over the city this morning and just sat there.

We took a look from a perch above the city and it was like we were in the clouds. Here's the story on what caused it:…

Jules Vasquez Reporting
There was a cruise ship in port today - but looking out to sea - there was no line on the horizon - as the sky and the sea blended in a monochromatic grey.

Just so, a gloomy pall hung over the city - as seen from atop the Radisson tower - a hazy landscape on what normally would be a bright and hot day in May.

The problem is this cluster of forest fires in the Peten and Southern Mexico, right into western Belize - the smoke from which blew to the coast this morning.

Dennis Gonguez, Chief Met Officer
"Well we have some fires that have been continuously occurring over the western sections of the country and early this morning we had a land wind - wind blowing off from the west to east and that brought all that smoke and fog into our area."

Jules Vasquez
"So how soon will it lift?"

Dennis Gonguez, Chief Met Officer
"It seems that the winds will go around to the east and south east this evening, although there is the possibility that we will have another land wind event again in the morning. So we are looking at gradual clearing up over the next couple of days."

Gonguez says the fires are fed by natural debris left behind by Hurricane Richard.

Dennis Gonguez, Chief Met Officer
"Much debris remains on the ground after Hurricane Richard and that is providing fuel along that part in the central parts of the country. That is providing fuel for the forest fires that you see along the central part of the country. So in addition to the normal forest fires that we have every year, we have that additional component of the dry vegetation left behind by Hurricane Richard."

It's created for woeful visibility at the Phillip Goldson International where we couldn't even see the runway from the airport road this afternoon:

Dennis Gonguez, Chief Met Officer
"The visibilities have been decreasing since this morning and in our last observation made the visibility has been reduce to about 8 kilometers, however it's not affecting air traffic at this time."

But according to Gonguez by later this afternoon - the airport had to restrict traffic to those aircraft equipped for instrument landings since visual landings had become difficult.

And despite all the smoke, according to biodiversity expert Jan Meerman, who contantly monitors the forest fire situation through the use of satellitt eimages, there are relatively few fires at the moment, the largest ones being a very large fire in the Yalbac and fires in the Gracy Rock / Runaway Creek area. In the Mountain Pine Ridge there is a large fire near the Guacamallo Bridge over the Macal. The forest Department told us that they have also had to intervenet in a major fire near Thosuand Foot falls, which was treatening recreation structures.

Meerman informs us that it is very hazy in Cayo as well.

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