Smaller fire engines introduced to tackle grass fires

The Civil Protection Department has bought 10 new fire-fighting vehicles designed to tackle and contain grass fires. 

The vehicles are smaller than ordinary fire engines, making it easier and faster for them to manoeuvre in narrow and tight country roads and valleys. 

They can carry 500 litres of water, compared to the 1,200 litres of the large fire engines.

The new vehicles cost €1 million.

The size of the vehicles will make it easier for firefighters to maneuver narrow country lanes to get to grass fires. Photo: Matthew Mirabelli

Some 1,600 grass fires break out in Malta and Gozo every year, CPD director Peter Paul Coleiro said, mostly between May and September. 97 percent of such fires are caused by human activity. 

Climate change, he explained, has led to vegetation drying faster, making a fire more likely to spread quickly. Many fires were sparked by discarded cigarette butts, glass and barbeques in dry fields, he said. 

In July, Gżira residents temporarily evacuated their houses when a grass fire erupted in an unbuilt plot between two buildings. 

In 2022, a farmer saw his life’s work destroyed, when 23 tumoli of his family’s land was engulfed by a grass fire. The fire had started in Wied Għomor and spread to his fields.

CPD director Peter Paul Coleiro during the inauguration of the new vehicles. Photo: Matthew Mirabelli

Coleiro appealed for public vigilance. People should not throw their cigarette butts in the countryside or roads bordering fields and avoid driving over dry vegetation, he said.

He also urged farmers to remain on site if they burn old and dry grass on their land.

During the launch of the vehicles, Home Affairs Minister Byron Camilleri praised the CPD for their excellent work and highlighted missions the department carried out in the past few days. 

On Friday evening, CPD firefighters extinguished a fire that broke out in a Gżira penthouse. No injures were reported. The next day, a toddler and her father were rescued from a well inside a property in Qormi. 

Home Affairs Minister Byron Camilleri during the launch of the new CPD vehicles. Photo: Matthew Mirabelli