Ten cars destroyed in
French Quarter fire
FRENCH QUARTER--Up to ten cars situated on a plot of land close to a garage in the centre of French Quarter were burnt out by a brush fire that came perilously close to houses on Tuesday, however there were no reports of injuries or houses affected.
The fire started in a flat, open grassy area behind Fleming’s Carpet Supply and was burning on both sides of a wide driveway at around midday. Fire Chief Captain Cleo Gumbs said four firemen and two trucks had responded to the blaze. About two hours later, they had it under control and extinguished.
Firemen had to hose down the cars, four of which witnesses said had been in good condition, awaiting repairs, while the remainder had been wrecks.
Gumbs declined to speculate on how the fire had started but said the Gendarmerie criminal unit had been notified.
Witnesses remarked that fire trucks had run out of water and had been obliged to fill up at the closest hydrants, however Gumbs defended the capacity of the trucks which he said were standard size.
“It’s true we had to go back and forth to refill but 3,000 litres of water disappears in about ten minutes,” he said. “Our trucks are the largest available for quick response situations. There are larger trucks that hold 6,000 litres which are used for major forest fires but their pumps require considerable loading and are slower.”
Meanwhile, a major fire at the French Cul-de-Sac garbage dump has not been fully extinguished and continues to burn since a large area of the site caught fire on Thursday night around 11:00pm. Reports in French side newspapers indicated that this fire had been started deliberately.
The densely compacted nature of the composted garbage keeps complicating matters as it continues to smoulder.
Gumbs said putting this particular fire out would take a tremendous amount of water from two fire departments plus the use of heavy equipment.
“On Monday, thanks to the rain over the weekend, about 75 per cent of the fire appeared to have diminished,” he added. “We were there again this morning and dumped 30,000 litres of water on it but basically that had little effect.”
Garbage trucks have temporarily been stopped from depositing garbage at the site which has recently been cleaned up completely, reorganised and transformed through implementation of a biological waste treatment system managed by the Guadeloupe-based company Verde.
Manager of the site M. Tey feared the fire could take weeks to die out completely.
“What we need now is a heavy shower of rain,” he said.
