RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Deputy Chief Fire Of­fi­cer Ansar Ali is warn­ing mem­bers of the pub­lic to re­frain from light­ing fires to clear agri­cul­tur­al lands, af­ter an­oth­er bush fire erupt­ed along Rivulet Road in Cou­va, near the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Es­tate.

Fire­fight­ers yes­ter­day re­spond­ed to the blaze near a lay­down yard op­er­at­ed by the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go, op­po­site the com­pound of Phoenix Park Gas Proces­sors Lim­it­ed, where NGC pipes are stored with­in its fenced com­pound. The in­ci­dent raised con­cerns due to the prox­im­i­ty of crit­i­cal en­er­gy in­fra­struc­ture.

Ali warned that dur­ing the dry sea­son (De­cem­ber 1-June 30), set­ting fires to clear agri­cul­tur­al lands or dis­pose of garbage with­out prop­er au­tho­ri­sa­tion is il­le­gal and can have se­ri­ous con­se­quences.

He urged mem­bers of the pub­lic to first ob­tain per­mits from the T&T Fire Ser­vice be­fore at­tempt­ing to burn grass, brush or oth­er de­bris.He al­so cau­tioned that light­ing fires near ar­eas with un­der­ground nat­ur­al gas pipelines is ex­treme­ly dan­ger­ous, es­pe­cial­ly in agri­cul­tur­al zones where land is ploughed or cleared.

Ac­cord­ing to Ali, fires set af­ter land has been ploughed can weak­en the soil and po­ten­tial­ly dam­age buried pipelines. In se­vere cas­es, such dam­age could lead to rup­tures, gas leaks and sec­ondary fires.

He said fire­fight­ers across the coun­try are re­spond­ing to dozens of bush­fire calls every day, plac­ing ad­di­tion­al pres­sure on emer­gency ser­vices.

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Roodal Mooni­lal con­firmed the blaze oc­curred near one of NGC’s lay­down yards but re­as­sured that the coun­try’s gas in­fra­struc­ture re­mained safe.

The in­ci­dent has al­so drawn at­ten­tion to safe­ty guide­lines es­tab­lished by the Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries for de­vel­op­ment and ac­tiv­i­ty near nat­ur­al gas pipelines.

Un­der those guide­lines, a min­i­mum wayleave or clear­ance area of 6.4 me­tres, or about 21 feet, must be main­tained on ei­ther side of a nat­ur­al gas pipeline. This buffer zone al­lows ac­cess for in­spec­tion and test­ing and helps en­sure that pipelines can be safe­ly mon­i­tored and main­tained.

En­er­gy of­fi­cials say main­tain­ing these buffer zones is es­sen­tial for pre­vent­ing haz­ards and en­sur­ing pipelines re­main at a safe dis­tance from de­vel­op­ments that could pose risks such as fires, ex­plo­sions or struc­tur­al dam­age.

The fine for set­ting a fire with­out a per­mit is $20,000 and six months’ im­pris­on­ment.