Landowners' fires put public safety at risk

One evening while heading home, I was alarmed to find a bright orange flame shining in an empty plot of land in my neighbourhood.

I knew what it was: someone had lit a fire on a vacant piece of land, a common problem in my neighbourhood as landowners resort to a cheap and easy method of clearing their properties.

What frightened me the most was that this land plot was separated from a petrol station only by a concrete wall.

I contacted a community service hotline and was informed that many residents in the area also were worried about the fire and firefighters had been called out to bring it under control.

Not long after, a team of firefighters came with a water truck to put out the fire. We were lucky the fire didn't spread to houses nearby, or take lives.

If you follow the news closely, you may have heard that some other places where fires started recently were not quite so fortunate.

Late last month, a fire broke out on vacant land and spread to a motor vehicle service centre, damaging around 30 cars.

Of course, the dryness and summer heat may help ignite fires in dry grass. In many cases, these fires will not burn out themselves and firefighters have to be called.

However, on a pessimistic note which I prefer to call "the truth", a more frequent cause of fires on empty land is that they are deliberately lit by landlords or their hired help, trying to get rid of unwanted weeds or trees.

Summer is a good time for them to take out those unwanted plants but rather than hiring workers to clear the land, they simply light the fires to do the job for them.

The workers want to avoid spending time in the heat, so they light a match to clear the land rather than removing the weeds themselves.

This is why fires often take place in empty areas. Some are located on main roads on land owned by prominent landlords who may be too rich and too selfish to spend money to manage their properties properly.

If the blazes get out of control, residents could end up with fires lapping at their houses, air pollution, haze which causes traffic problems and, of course, having to pay the cost of calling out firefighters.

We usually hear that police were unable to arrest the wrongdoers who dropped the match.

I consider the people who cause these roadside fires as arsonists as they intentionally set fires.

My area close to Kaset-Navamin Road has more than 10 empty land plots, which in total may be owned by only a few landlords.

I believe firefighters are a treasure of the country as they have the honour of being entrusted to save the lives and assets of the public.

The firefighting trucks and other equipment they use belong to us, as they are taxpayer-funded.

It's simply unacceptable to me that in the event that firefighters have to be called, these assets are deployed to serve the needs of some landlords who want to clear their land and take unacceptable risks with public safety by lighting fires to do so.

Such incidents happen every year but the problem seems to be more frequent this year, maybe because of the high summer temperatures.

Rich landlords do not have to worry about whether their actions will cause harm to other people, as the responsibility has been shifted to the firefighters who are expected to control the fires.

I would like to urge that we take stricter measures against people who set fire to their land.

We should keep firefighters and their equipment for necessity cases instead of sending them to serve the demands of some rich people who have more than enough money to manage their own land but don't want to pay for it.

What will happen if such a roadside fire occurs at the same time as a genuine accident? One fire at a towel warehouse in Samut Prakan last week needed around 20 water trucks to put it out.

Will we have sufficient firefighters to battle fires at both locations? Will they have to divide the team up?

We should refuse to send firefighters to help these landlords and we should file suit to get compensation from people who intentionally light fires that destroy the environment, create traffic problems and cause panic to residents.

A forensics team should be sent into the field to find the cause of such blazes, and legal action should be taken against the landlords. People who order such fires to be lit on their land should be prepared to pay for what they have done.