Fire at Sleeping Giant Spreads

The Ministry of Sustainable Development, Climate Change and Disaster Risk Management continues to monitor the fire at the Sleeping Giant Mountain area. For over three weeks now, smoke has been billowing into the sky and can be seen from a distance. But what was once a plume of smoke has expanded to almost three acres of forest.  Today, News Five spoke with C.E.O. Doctor Kenrick Williams about concerns over the damage this is causing to the forest.

Kenrick Williams

Dr. Kenrick Williams, C.E.O., Ministry of Sustainable Development, Climate Change and Disaster Risk Management

“What we’ve seen since that visit on June twenty-first, we have seen some extent in terms of rate of burn; we have seen an expansion of the fire in itself. You would note that instead of a single plume, we have several key areas that are burning. But all in all, the fire is largely contained. What we see is that the rate of expansion of the fire is slower than actually anticipated. I think our chief forest officer indicated that we have up to about two and a half acres burnt. We had anticipated that between Friday and Monday, we would have seen doubled because of the rate that we’ve seen earlier. Fortunately the rate is slower than anticipated. There is some concern to the extent of burn, the biodiversity, the forest ecosystem because of course there is a lot of scarring because the nature of the biodiversity will be affected in terms of the area they occupy. But again, we are really assessing to make sure the extent is not significant that would outweigh the cost of going up there and doing so. Because of the elevation and the terrain of this area, it is very difficult to address this fire by ground support.”