“I said to some residents that we’ll have to visit them because efforts to extinguish the flames have now started to affect residents, because as they push the stuff, the materials and the saw dust, down the gully, it is now started to push out smoke that has now started to get down into South Amelia’s Ward,” he said.

Elderly residents of South Amelia’s Ward developing respiratory complications due to smoke from aftermath of saw mill blaze- MayorThe mayor explained that Amelia’s Wars is actually the constituency he has responsibility for. Over the past several days, the sawmill fire has been a matter of concern. The mayor stressed that this incident has completely exposed the capacity of the council not only on how to deal with these kinds of fires, but also how they are looking at the permits they issue to saw millers.

While he commended the Ministry of Home Affairs on the efforts taken to extinguish the blaze, he appealed to the minister to provide the necessary gear, machinery and vehicles to the to the municipality so that should a similar incident occur in the future, Linden would be well equipped to handle it on their own, or contain it until help arrives if needed.

Pointing in the direction of a home from the site of the fire, His Worship told his viewers that there is an “entire population of people down into the valley, and it’s already causing significant respiratory issues for some very elderly person. In fact, I got a call this morning from someone complaining about this. So, this is now becoming something we now have to look at as we finish one catastrophe of the fire, we now have to go down into the valley and look at the residents who are complaining about the dust, the smoke, because this is not going away anytime soon.”  (Kaieteur News)