May 17th, 2005

A county official from San Juan has expressed concern over the growing number of abandoned properties in the area that contain asbestos, and has suggested that these buildings are set on fire in order to alleviate the problem. The San Juan Fire Chief has already stated at a recent meeting that the buildings could be donated to the county by the owners and could then be used for fire training, serving two purposes – to provide training resources and to cut down on the number of asbestos properties abandoned around the area.

The fire chief added that some owners of abandoned homes already donated properties for this purpose, “We don’t have a lot of people that do but we have some. I don’t know that it’s a huge solution. I don’t know if it’s cheaper to burn it than to haul it someplace.”

He said that at present about five of these buildings each year are burned. However, once they have been burned and the fire has been put out, the property owners have to get rid of the remains. He stated, “We don’t move it. They still have the expense of trying to get rid of what’s left.”

The fire department captain said that having real homes to burn as part of the training is great for rookies, because it puts them in a more realistic environment and they can see how quickly a fire can spread through the home. However, it can take a couple of months for these donations to go through due to red tape.