77.5 per cent of Kayu Madang landfill fire contained
KOTA KINABALU: The State Fire and Rescue Department (Bomba) is working round the clock to contain the fire at the Kayu Madang landfill near the Kota Kinabalu Industrial Park in Telipok.
Sabah Fire and Rescue Department Director Abdul Razak Muda said the operation, which entered its fourth day, had been divided into Sector A, B, C and D, with an area of about 45,700 square meters of waste disposal site.
As of Thursday (March 28), Bomba had managed to contain about 77.5 per cent of the area with Sector A at 80 per cent, Sector B (40 per cent), Sector C (100 per cent) and Sector D (90 percent).
Abdul Razak said Fixed Monitor Fire Fighting equipment and High Performance Pump Module HPPM machinery were used to contain the fire by using water from open sources and 14 foam barrels.
The fire started at around noon on Sunday (March 24) at a nearby secondary forest area and spread quickly to the landfill area, where used tyres were dumped.
Meanwhile, the Sabah Fire and Rescue Department extinguished open burning fires covering 3,904.45 hectares between Jan 1 and March 27, announced its director, Abdul Razak Muda.
He highlighted that efforts are underway to extinguish fires in a remaining area of 1.49 hectares in Tuaran, adding that a total of 1,435 fires were reported during the period.
The highest number of open burning occurred in forest areas, covering 2,180.85 hectares with 578 cases, followed by agricultural land and vegetable farms (911.06 hectares/96 cases), shrubs and grassland (714.48 hectares/746 cases), and peatland (99.3 hectares/43 cases), he said.
“Out of the 27 districts in Sabah, only three districts, namely, Telupid, Tongod, and Kalabakan have not experienced any open burning incidents so far,” he said in a statement on Thursday.
He noted that Kota Belud recorded the largest area of open burning at 725.8 hectares, followed by Kuala Penyu with 688.73 hectares and Tuaran with 616.43 hectares.
“The fires in Tuaran have yet to be completely extinguished, whereas those in Kota Belud and Kuala Penyu have been successfully put out,” he added.
He further stated that within the past 24 hours, 43 reports of fires involving 105.05 hectares of land have been received.