Kris­tel-Marie Ram­nath

Wild­fires oc­cur on every con­ti­nent ex­cept Antarc­ti­ca and are pre­dom­i­nant dur­ing the months of Feb­ru­ary to May in T&T. They oc­cur when the nec­es­sary el­e­ments of a fire tri­an­gle come to­geth­er: an ig­ni­tion source; com­bustible ma­te­r­i­al; an ad­e­quate sup­ply of oxy­gen. Al­most all bush fires in T&T can be at­trib­uted to hu­man sources such as ar­son and slash-and-burn agri­cul­tur­al clear­ing. Wild­fires gen­er­ate ash; de­stroy avail­able or­gan­ic nu­tri­ents; di­rect­ly and in­di­rect­ly dev­as­tate wildlife pop­u­la­tions and their habi­tats; cause an in­crease in wa­ter runoff, erod­ing oth­er nu­tri­ents and cre­at­ing flash flood con­di­tions. Wild­fires can al­so have an ef­fect on cli­mate change, in­creas­ing the amount of car­bon re­leased in­to the at­mos­phere and in­hibit­ing veg­e­ta­tion growth which af­fects over­all car­bon up­take by plants.

Wild­fire emis­sions con­tain green­house gas­es and a num­ber of crit­i­cal pol­lu­tants which can have a sub­stan­tial im­pact on hu­man health, wel­fare and ma­jor im­pacts on re­gion­al and glob­al pol­lu­tion.In this ar­ti­cle we con­sid­er the ef­fects on our pets when a fire is de­lib­er­ate­ly set.Fire pro­duces gas which sus­pends car­bon par­ti­cles in the air, cre­at­ing smoke. In smoke in­hala­tion in­jury oc­curs as a re­sult of di­rect heat dam­age to the up­per air­way and lin­ing of the nose.The par­tic­u­late mat­ter (ash or soot) ad­heres to and set­tles in the up­per air­ways and lungs caus­ing ir­ri­ta­tion or clog­ging the lungs which pre­vents your pet from breath­ing, and can lead to acute res­pi­ra­to­ry dis­tress. As­phyx­ia or suf­fo­ca­tion can oc­cur since fire re­duces the oxy­gen con­tent in air that is breathed.

How­ev­er, it is the in­vis­i­ble gas­es and chem­i­cals such as car­bon monox­ide, formalde­hyde, ben­zene, hy­dro­gen chlo­ride and acrolein that of­ten kill. Car­bon monox­ide de­creas­es tis­sue oxy­gen de­liv­ery by bind­ing to red blood cells.The ex­tent of dam­age de­pends on the de­gree and du­ra­tion of ex­po­sure to smoke and the ma­te­r­i­al that was burn­ing. Pets may have se­ri­ous lung in­jury with lit­tle ev­i­dence of burn­ing on their skin. The air­ways and lungs spasm and con­strict, the air­ways swell, and there is an in­crease in mu­cus pro­duc­tion which is fol­lowed by an in­flam­ma­to­ry re­sponse in the tra­chea and bronchial area and flu­id ac­cu­mu­la­tion in the lungs (pul­monary oede­ma). Most pa­tients show pro­gres­sion of lung dys­func­tion in the ini­tial two to three days af­ter ex­po­sure.Fol­low-up bac­te­r­i­al in­fec­tions are a com­mon cause of death late in the dis­ease due to the wound­ed tis­sue be­ing an ad­van­ta­geous re­cep­tor for bac­te­ria.

Smoke in­hala­tion is a med­ical emer­gency that needs vet­eri­nary at­ten­tion im­me­di­ate­ly, even if your pet seems to re­cov­er. Smoke can be in­sid­i­ous and can kill hours to days af­ter it is in­haled. Pets who stop breath­ing need ar­ti­fi­cial res­pi­ra­tion (and pos­si­bly CPR) to sur­vive. Moist, cool air from a hu­mid­i­fi­er soothes the res­pi­ra­to­ry pas­sages and re­duces cough­ing, which can make the ir­ri­ta­tion worse. Place the hu­mid­i­fi­er in the room where your pet sleeps and run it for two to three-days af­ter the event. Adding a few ice cubes to your pet's wa­ter dish or of­fer­ing cold wa­ter will help soothe the ir­ri­ta­tion and re­hy­drate tis­sues that were dam­aged by the smoke.Un­der the Agri­cul­tur­al Fires Act (1965), the fire sea­son com­mences on De­cem­ber 1 of any one year and ends on June 30 of the suc­ceed­ing year. Dur­ing this sea­son peo­ple who want to set a fire (oth­er than an in­door do­mes­tic fire) must ap­ply to the Coun­ty Fire Con­trol Of­fi­cer for a per­mit to do so. I urge cit­i­zens of T&T to be more re­spon­si­ble in up­hold­ing the law, thus pre­vent­ing the un­nec­es­sary suf­fer­ing and death of our wildlife, pets and oth­er hu­mans caused by the un­for­tu­nate­ly com­mon prac­tice of set­ting wild­fires.