Even as they went about spraying water over the burnt heaps of garbage to control smoke at the Vellalore dump yard, the Coimbatore Corporation officials simultaneously began works to compartmentalise the waste into heaps to gain access to the interior areas.
By Sunday, the Corporation had created three main pathways of at least 15m wide and was in the process of pushing garbage to form narrower stretches perpendicular to the main pathways.
Officials said they planned to have as many pathways as possible to compartmentalise the waste that was spread over 90 acre. The fire spread to nearly 40 acre.
The Corporation officials say the objective behind compartmentalising the waste was a precautionary measure against future fire - fire that breaks out in a section of the compartmentalised waste will not spread to the adjacent compartments and the pathways among waste will provide easy access for vehicles to reach the place of fire.
The work will take a few more days and the Corporation hopes to complete the process by the weekend.
In addition to the compartmentalisation work, the Corporation has also planned to fence the waste.
This is in a preliminary stage, the officials say and add that the civic body will soon finalise the extent and type of fencing in the next few days.
Likewise, the Corporation also plans to buy a drone to have an aerial view of the waste.
In the last stages of the fire fighting operation, it had hired a private party to fly drones over the waste to see where the fire still raged, where to position the vehicles to fight the fire and the extent of the fire.
Meanwhile, the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board officials have written to the Corporation seeking details of the fire breakout and the steps it had taken to fight the fire. Confirming the receipt of the Board's letter, the civic body officials say they will reply in the next few days.
Published - April 03, 2019 12:15 am IST
