05 Oct 2017

Mysterious huge balls of fire have engulfed Gamodubu Landfill Tuesday and consumed over 5 tonnes of waste tyres and caused smog over villages of Mmanoko and Gamodubu.

According to landfill manager, Mr Happy Mokete, the fire outbreak was noticed around noon and immediately relevant offices were notified, and fire fighters from Rural Metro, the army and Gaborone city council were dispatched to the scene, but could not put off fire because it was too fierce.

He said the nearby Gamodubu village was saved from smoke by winds that blew it high into the skies and directed it away from the village and hoped that the  rain focused for Thursday would help suppress the fire, which was on Wednesday on its  third day.

Mr Mokete said looking at the amount and type of waste burning it could take them up to Friday to completely subdue the fire and avert any associated danger to the nearby village and the environment.

Mr Mokete ruled out the possibility that landfill staff  could have deliberately started the fire because they were aware of the consequences of burning tyres.

Besides, Mr Mokete said the staff was cognizant of the standing policy on used tyres, which was mostly collected by some businesses for recycling purposes.

“Though used tyres are disposed here, we don’t burn them because we know the implication of burning tyres, so we are not the source of the fires and only investigations from fire experts will provide answers to what could be the cause,” he said.

Village Kgosi Mr Samuel Ramotlabaki said he was alerted of the fires around noon by the landfill officials and immediately took to the scene, where the fire fighters from government departments tried in vain to contain the inferno until into the evening.

He said the villagers on Tuesday were saved from smog stench by winds that blew the smoke high into the sky, but on Wednesday when the inferno was subsiding Gamodubu and Mmanoko were now engulfed with fire smog.

Kgosi Ramotlabaki said  he feared that  residents’ health maybe affected by the strong stench because “we don’t know what we could be inhaling, which may affect our health in future.”

Officials from pollution control department according to Mr Mokete were on site to determine damage and do preliminary assessment on what could have been affected by the inferno and smog bellowing from the landfill.

He said they had since roped in police and fire experts to investigate the cause of  the fire, ‘and only then we could have a clue what caused fire which consumed over five tonnes of scrap or used tyres.”

Gamodubu Regional landfill is located some 30km west of Gaborone in the Kweneng District and was commissioned in 2009 with a life span of 20  years, but of recent there have been concerns that the amount of waste disposed may lower its capacity and shorten its lifespan. ENDS