Farmers in St Mary are counting the mounting losses of weeks of bush fires – worsened by prolonged dry conditions – that have swept through agricultural communities, destroying crops, irrigation equipment and farm infrastructure.

Farmer Owen Hanshard said large sections of the parish have been affected by fires that have moved across mountainsides and into farming areas, leaving some properties almost unrecognisable.

“Most of St Mary is being gutted by fire,” Hanshard said. “There was this huge fire that I don’t know where it started from, but it has traversed along the mountainside and all over the place.”

He said one farm he visited was severely damaged, with irrigation equipment and other resources destroyed.

“The place was burnt out, unrecognisable,” he said. “I used some of our equipment because we have our water hose and certain things here that’s used to irrigate the farm. They were burnt up.”

Hanshard said the fires have continued in several communities, including Montreal, Rock River and Clarke Castle, with some areas difficult for firefighters to access because of the remote and rugged terrain.

“Some of the areas that it has been going, it’s so remote, though the fire unit would have come there, they cannot get access to those places,” he said. “So, it’s like all they can do is just watch it burn.”

What’s worse, he said efforts to fight the fires have been complicated by low water levels in rivers, limiting the ability of residents to pump water to contain the flames.

“The river has gotten so low that they had a pump; they were trying to pump some water to see if they could maybe expend the fire, but it didn’t work,” he said.

Hanshard said while his own farm suffered losses, other farmers have been hit much harder.

“Mine was impacted, but not as severe as other persons. I’ve lost some cane and some plantain,” he said.

He praised the Jamaica Fire Brigade for responding to calls, but noted that the terrain often prevented them from reaching the affected areas.

“The (Jamaica) Fire Brigade really turned up,” he said. “I can remember four consecutive times when I was over there that they came. But having come, there’s nothing that they could have done because of how the terrain is.”

Another farmer, Dave Evans, who operates a nine-acre farm, said the impact has been devastating after more than three months of drought conditions left crops vulnerable.

“This drought has been here for over 13 weeks. It dry up everything around it and we lose the crops them, we lose the plants them, but the fire now take set,” Evans said.

He explained that some of the fires are fuelled by dry vegetation and strong winds.

“We have firestorm from Friday. We have been having firestorms every day,” he said. “When it reach nine to 10 o’clock, the fire just generates.”

Evans said sparks from burning bamboo and other dry material have helped spread the fires, causing widespread destruction.

“It burn a greenhouse for me, it burn all the pipes them,” he said. “We have corn we plant, we lose everything because them push up and then them just suffocate and dead.”

He said his farm has lost nearly all of its production, including plantain fields, corn crops, irrigation pipes and drip hoses.

“The fire just come and blow through the plantain walk and burn down the plantain walk dem so we basically on ground zero because even if you did have the young crops dem weh should be pushing up now, everything burn out. Weh the sun nuh do, the fire come finish them,” Evans said.

The farmer said he has also been forced to relocate some farming activities closer to the river in an effort to continue production.

“My yam field, we have to leave them land there and come near to the river,” he said. “I lose the greenhouse, I lose the pipe, I lose 36 lengths of inch and a half pipe, not talking about drip hose.”

Evans said firefighters have been focused mainly on protecting homes because of the number of communities affected, but many farms remain difficult to access.

“The fire trucks don’t have access to the farms,” he said. “Most of the farms are not really near the road, so the farms just leave and burn out.”

He said farmers have been trying to save what they can by removing equipment and wetting areas around storage facilities, but many crops and farming materials have already been lost.

“We try to pull up some of the water pipes and the things them, but you can’t save nothing out in the farm,” he said.

Evans acknowledged that the Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA) has visited some affected farms to assess the damage, but said additional fires have since destroyed more agricultural areas.

The farmers are calling on the Government and the wider public to provide some relief and support as they work to recover from what they describe as one of the most damaging fire periods they have experienced.