The heavy smoke from the Riverton landfill covering Kingston and sections of St Catherine since Thursday night should ease considerably within the next three days, the National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA) told the Sunday Observer yesterday.

According to Rachel Allen, an NSWMA director who has responsibility for developing the landfill, two fires that sparked the problem have been contained and work crews are moving as swiftly as possible to get rid of the smoke.

“We’re getting it under control,” Allen told the Sunday Observer yesterday. “The more equipment we bring in, the faster we can solve this problem.”

Allen said that landfill attendants, NSWMA staff and the fire brigade have been working round the clock since Thursday when the first fire started in the scrap metal section of the dump.

“We contained that, but by Friday morning another fire started in another section of the landfill and at the same time one of our tractors went down,” she said.

“The problem is that the smoke is being spread by the wind,” said Allen. “If the wind could ease up, it would also help.”

Allen said that she expected to get other tractors into the landfill yesterday evening to help, and estimated that “everything should be under control within three days”.

She was unable to say what caused the fires, but said the authorities were speculating that persons searching for scrap metal may have set off the blaze by accident.