For the first 25 days of the year, the Barbados Fire Service has responded to 173 incidents, 134 of which were fires.
Of those fires, 105 were grass or rubbish.
This has led the fire service to again appeal to Barbadians to stop burning rubbish and find other ways to get rid of it.
Speaking on the sidelines of the relaunch of the SAFE programme at the St Ambrose Primary School, Cypress Street, The City, yesterday, fire officer Andrew Taylor, from the Research and Planning Unit, said the fire service was becoming more concerned about the numbers being reported.
“We want to encourage persons to desist from indiscriminate burning. Sometimes when our officers go to the scene, some people would say to them that they were trying to get rid of rubbish and the pests.
“Between 2015 and 2016, we had three to four houses being damaged due to persons burning rubbish or grass. Only last year, a house was lost in St Lucy due to someone burning rubbish and [it] got out of control,” he said. (DB)
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