A bush fire at Farm Road Ex­ten­sion, St Joseph, sparked con­cern yes­ter­day, as thick plumes of smoke led many to be­lieve the blaze had erupt­ed at the near­by Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex in Mt Hope.

North Cen­tral Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty’s (NCRHA) chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer Dalvin Thomas was forced to is­sue a state­ment say­ing the fire did not oc­cur on the au­thor­i­ty’s com­pound.

Thomas added that drone footage from the NCRHA’s In­ves­ti­ga­tions, Re­con­nais­sance, and Sur­veil­lance Unit showed the fire was ac­tu­al­ly a bush blaze, lo­cat­ed far from the hos­pi­tal’s premis­es.

The fire, which was re­port­ed just af­ter 11 am, was brought un­der con­trol in just over an hour by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Fire Ser­vice.

How­ev­er, the Fire Ser­vice has urged cit­i­zens to take ex­tra pre­cau­tions to pre­vent fires in ar­eas with over­grown grass and dense veg­e­ta­tion as the coun­try con­tin­ues through the dry sea­son.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, As­sis­tant Chief Fire Of­fi­cer for the North­ern Di­vi­sion Noel Stu­art stressed the need for greater aware­ness and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty when it comes to waste dis­pos­al and land main­te­nance.

He said the bush fire at Farm Road was made worse be­cause of high­ly flam­ma­ble dis­card­ed items which aslso caught fire.

“There were sev­er­al pock­ets of fire on the prop­er­ty, and the pres­ence of dis­card­ed tyres wors­ened the sit­u­a­tion. When the grass caught fire, it spread to the tyres, caus­ing a larg­er blaze that was dif­fi­cult to con­tain.

“The dry sea­son brings a high­er risk of wild­fires, which can have se­ri­ous con­se­quences for pub­lic health and en­tire com­mu­ni­ties. We need to do prop­er house­keep­ing—prun­ing trees and cut­ting tall grass—be­cause if a fire breaks out, these can fu­el its rapid spread, lead­ing to se­ri­ous dam­age and health risks,” Stu­art ex­plained.

The Fire Ser­vice al­so re­mind­ed the pub­lic that dump­ing waste in open lots is not a prop­er dis­pos­al method, par­tic­u­lar­ly dur­ing the dry sea­son, when fire risks are high.