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Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Fire has broken out at the Kiteezi landfill. The incident happened on Saturday when residents saw thick plumes of smoke raging over the dump site,
KCCA officials led by Executive Director Sharifah Buzeki, Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago and technical teams rushed to the scene to coordinate firefighting efforts.
The Police fire Brigade and other emergency response teams arrived and battled the fire in an attempt to bring it under control. The police and the other response teams were also planning to evacuate the residents neighbouring the land refill.
Right now at the closed Kiteezi dump-site for emergency response to the mysterious fire at the garbage mountain top believed to be stemming from methane combustion underneath. Fire bridgade experts have expressed the need to use a murrum dosing method as opposed to water bowser.. pic.twitter.com/4O5IlHOvfk
— Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago (@EriasLukwago_) February 8, 2025
Buzeki says that information received from the experts indicates that the fire may have been triggered by the accumulation of methane gas that is beneath the landfill’s surface.
Buzeki said that anyone who has returned to inhabit the demarcated 200-meter buffer zone around the landfill in the villages of Lusanjje, Kitetika and Kiteezi must vacate immediately.
“We call upon the area leadership, security agencies and the public to ensure that this area is vacated to warrant the safety of all persons and property,” she said.
Lukwago expressed concern over the fire warning of a potential explosion if the fire is not contained.
In August, there were reports that an explosion of dangerous methane gas could have triggered the landfill disaster. Some of the survivors of the incident reportedly heard some explosions from the direction of the buried houses before the collapse of the landfills.
In 2008 Uganda Radio Network came across documentary evidence warning of a possible methane gas explosion at Kiteezi then under the management of the defunct Kampala City Council (KCC). The warning was contained in an Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) report prepared by KCC for a gas-flaring project that KCC has prepared for funding under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) project activity.
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