HOUMA, La. (WGNO) — Terrebonne Parish residents have dealt with smoke from a marsh fire for several days.
“It goes in your house and you can’t breathe,” says Houma resident Beverly Spencer.
Spencer hates to wake up seeing clouds of smoke and says now it’s taking a toll on her body.
“It is a lot of smoke. You can only take so much then you can’t breathe. You get short-winded, eyes burning and everything. I stay inside but you can smell it like that,” says Spencer.
The Bayou Cane Fire Protection District explains the marsh fire is burning in an area that cannot be reached.
Councilman Gerald Michel says the parish has installed temporary pumps along levees in the area of the marsh fire to pump water from the bayous into the marsh.
“Ouiski Bayou goes to Bayou Black, which ultimately goes out to the Gulf of Mexico. So, they have reversed the pumps in Bayou Black so they can bring water in from the Gulf of Mexico to ultimately be pumped here,” says Michel.
Since installing the pumps, some days are clearer than others. Savanne Road is currently closed as a safety precaution due to the amount of smoke.
“This marsh fire has come up to the road. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the smoke from the clouds but there is definitely still a lot of smoke out there. It’s just water that we are pumping reaching those areas. We hope that it’s a viable solution,” says Michel.
More than ten pumps work daily to put out the marsh fire, but officials don’t have a date on when this could be behind us.
“Only time will be able to tell if this is actually working. People are grateful for the days they do not have to be irritated with the smoke. We are just trying to deal with it the best way we can and hopefully, this will all be behind us,” says Michel.
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