ST JAMES, Jamaica — The latest occurrence of fire at the Retirement landfill is said to be now under control.

Since Wednesday, there had been signs that there was a fire at the facility as a plume of smoke blanketed sections of Montego Bay.

During the regular monthly meeting of the St James Municipal Corporation, Senior Public Cleansing Inspector, Louis Porter said the fire is being contained.

“We are doing all that we can to prevent further spread with our tipper trucks and water truck currently on site moving material to stockpile and help with the blaze,” he stated.

“Currently at the landfill we have things under control,” he added.

He said they have been actively working to address the matter.

“The team has responded by using equipment and material on site to put out flames but the wind has been very high but all efforts to contain the blaze was successful,” he said.

“Currently we have 100 metres of the edge burning and one piece of equipment suffered damage during the operation,” he added as part of the update.

He provided a potential reason why this latest occurrence has happened.

“Based on the update this morning, we currently have a fire on cell one, the tipping area, and the origin of the fire is suspected to be something that was brought in by the collection of our units,” he said.

Pickers on site raised the alarm to staff.