San Pedro Residents Urged to Stop Burning Garbage or Face Fines

As dry season conditions continue to create dangerous fire risks across the country, the San Pedro Town Council is sounding the alarm on a practice that remains all too common in many communities: burning garbage. The warning comes on the heels of two recent fires that hit close to home for residents in the area. Just days ago, a warehouse in San Pedro burned to the ground, and before that, a fire broke out at Secret Beach. The council is reminding residents that open burning of any kind is prohibited and carries fines, urging everyone to use the Solid Waste Transfer Station instead.

 

Andre Perez, Chair, NEMO Belize Rural South

“The discussion is that we are sending out a very strong statement supported by the council, by the fire department, by the police department, and of course my office, of the warnings of the illegal [burning of garbage] and land clearing especially up North in San Pedro. A lot of land clearing for land development is happening. With the high winds right now and the extreme dry season that is what we are emitting right now because it’s a lot of brush fires and that’s because of illegal and irresponsible lighting up to try to clear your lands. It was a warehouse that was burnt down and they are doing their reports and assessment, obviously its related to people doing land clearing and you know its very windy these days, we are in the month of May. It’s a distance away from town. I think its almost a distance of 5-6 miles. And that, by Ambergris Caye standards it’s a distance away to get there. Again its land clearing. Everybody is trying to- right now with the dry season, there’s no flooding so people are trying to clear the lands to start. Because a lot of those lands have been distributed for residents. So I can understand the reason why people are trying to clear up so they can start building. So again that is another brush fire that was created by that. I repeat we have sent out a very strong statement about the illegalities of lighting up and trying to clear our lands by way of fire.”

 

The message from authorities is clear: no fire is worth the risk. With dry season far from over, residents are being asked to do their part.

 

Attention readers: This online newscast is a direct transcript of our evening television broadcast. When speakers use Kriol, we have carefully rendered their words using a standard spelling system.

 

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