Explosion leads to massive fire at Pockwood Pond waste facility
Contributed photos of the fire.
The waste facility in Pockwood Pond, Tortola is on fire.
The fire was caused by an explosion in the ‘yard’ of the facility minutes before 3 pm on Monday, November 26.
“It appears as if, probably, a gas can or something else exploded,” head of the Department of Waste Management, Greg Masicotte told BVI News.
“When those tanks explode, they have gas coming out of it and that caused things to kind of go haywire. So, it eventually hit the [garbage/debris] pile in the building and that cause the fire,” he further explained.
Firefighters have already responded at the scene and, up to press time, they were still trying to contain the blaze.
Water trucks are also on the scene to provide support.
BVI News will provide updates as this breaking story develops.
Below is amateur footage of the fire sent to our news centre.
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Please god let that whole dirty thing burn down so we can get a new one that doesnt poison the west end air and drinking water… Maybe the govt looking to give aaway another 100K to put it out tho
100k.no. 336k
RDA is the only hope for this as as successive thieving BVI govts have failed the people and mismanage evrey thing they touch
TCP right next door, give them some more money to extinguish that fire
Is this your best wish for the country? Guess we got what you and all the bad omen prophets praying for. People live in that area and beyond where the smoke is going to cause havoc on their respiratory systems and here you are wishing the worst for the place.
You have picked a good name for yourself…read it again…”so we can have new one that doesn’t poison the people”
It is time to update or renew this failing waste disposal programme that has been poisoning people since well before Irma so don’t come with that…and can you tell me what happen to the scrubber for the incinerator or the $ 1mil the new paid for it?
That incinerator is basically a open fire with a chimney…. now it down till further notice…watch them pile the garbage on the hill and make a nice big toxic fire for our christmas
Where are they evacuating the people of the western end of the island to? Mass evacuation should be taking place.
Where are they evacuating the people of the western end of the island to? They will not be able to breathe if the winds blow their way. Mass evacuation should be going on now.
Ahhh… Nature’s Little Secrets.
The Government should be ashamed
This is Ronnie’s hard work after 8 years! What a joker!
Just watch them start to pile the garbage on the hill for our Christmas fire
If anything else go out of place the govt will have to supply helicopters to move people out of west end. How can we build a waste facility close to a power plant what about the health of those working there and even those working in the waste facility are they secured. The police officers and the fire men working hard I hope they are secured because we have no idea what chemical or substance exploded and the chemicals release in the atmosphere. Why is the ministry of health not saying anything about this and yet they want us to pay NHI. The community of west end is not Happy about this. This system is failing day by day
This is the kind of smoke we put up with daily in VG . A haze over the island and a bluish oily film on the western seashore.
Hope this was not deliberate. I say no more. I wish God would lift the curtain and expose what is truly going on.
NDP done at it again
You see honourable Vanterpool over a year the officers can not get a buildin, but them keep doing their work. Fire do not happened often but when it do happen it always big . The officers need a build equipments and training.
Thank God nobody was killed or hurt, because at that busy time of the day things could have been a lot worse. Amen.
SMH – terrible. How can this fire not be contained quickly? Surely health and safety should have been in place to react to this type of event.