(MENAFN - Arab Times) Up to nine firemen suffered from smoke inhalation at the site of the fire that broke out earlier on Friday in Amghara, five of whom had to be whisked off to the Jahra Hospital for treatment, said a Health Ministry official, in remarks he made to KUNA.
Dr Faisal Al-Ghanim, director of medical emergency management at the ministry said that nine ambulance teams had been sent to the site of the fire in Amghara, along with an on-site medical emergency treatment unit.
In a related move, chairman of the Environment Public Authority (EPA) Salah Al-Mudhi noted that equipment measuring the emission of gases from the fire site has shown no appreciable threat to people's health, emphasizing that the measuring process was taking place every five minutes.
If the readings of emitted gases reach a serious level, the EPA will inform the public living in the immediate areas to the fire to take necessary precautions to safeguard their health.
The fire in Amghara broke out in two scrapyards, one reserved for discarded cars, the other for old tires, said Minister of Electricity and Water Abdulaziz Al-Ibrahim, who was on the scene monitoring the efforts by firefighters to put out the fire.
Another official at the fire site Ibrahim al-Tarrah, who is chief of security operations in the Al-Jahra municipality, told reporters that early investigation into the causes of the fire indicated that according to eyewitnesses a number of blue collar workers were seen leaving furtively the site of the fire, moments before it broke out.
He said all pertinent government agencies were on the site of the incident to do their investigations expeditiously.
Later, firemen succeeded in extinguishing a massive fire in Amghara scrapyard on Friday, with suspicion that the fire was a deliberate act. "The fire is deliberate with four fires taking place in different locations of the scrapyard, and the criminals did it to distract efforts of firemen who have done their duty fully," Colonel Khaled Al-Mekrad, Director of the Fire Zone and Marine Rescue, told KUNA.
Al-Mekrad said investigation was already underway to know who and what caused the fire. He praised all firemen who contributed to putting off the fire.
