The fire at the old Belize City dump is under control tonight after it flared up last night. It was ignited yesterday afternoon and by this morning it was an inferno – with visible flames at the edge of the road, releasing huge clouds of smoke across the highway – which made for almost zero visibility in the morning rush hour. Here’s the story of what happened and what was done to fix it.

Keith Swift Reporting,
This morning the fire at the old Belize City dump was raging.

Michael Middleton, Fire Department
“We first found out about it yesterday evening and we did not come out because we were looking at the safety of our fire fighters. We didn’t want to put them out in the dark so we decided to leave it until this morning and then we’ll deal with it.”

Keith Swift,
Would you consider this out of control?

Michael Middleton,
“Definitely I would say out of control but it is manageable. We can extinguish this fire.”

Phillip Willoughby, City Councillor
“We are coordinating the resources with the excavator and bulldozer and so forth to remedial measures once again on the dump site. But what our long term outlook will be is to cordon off the area and create like some, I am technically speaking, but create some squares and try to attack the fire in sets of blocks.”

Willoughby believes it was intentionally set.

Phillip Willoughby,
“I think again that maybe negligence on the person’s behalf that are burning the copper wire or it was an intentional operation to have this thing burning.”

Michael Middleton,
“We believe somebody actually lit this fire because we were out here maybe three or four weeks ago and the fire was all the way to the back and we extinguished that fire and yesterday it was up again in a different area. So we do believe that people who come to the dump to search for copper, they light the dump and so it makes it easier for them to find the material they are looking for.”

Again the fire is now under control. The City Council plans to increase security at the dumpsite to avoid any re-occurrence.