The Pembroke Dump fire, which erupted yesterday, could burn for days and has forced Government to call for a partial evacuation.

Already seniors in the Pembroke Rest Home have been shifted to St. George's while other elderly neighbours or those with infants or respiratory problems are being urged to go.

Around 30 fire-fighters and ten vehicles were called to tackle an inferno the size of a football pitch which erupted shortly after 9 a.m.

But by lunchtime fire chiefs opted to let the blaze burn itself out as dousing the flames simply reduced the height of smoke which sent it into nearby homes.

Fire Chief Vincent Hollinsid said: "By deciding to allow it to burn it will generate sufficient heat to allow the smoke and heat to rise a lot quicker. We anticipate it will burn for two days at a minimum."

Fire crews are hoping an early collapse will allow the flaming heap of horticultural waste to be picked apart and extinguished quicker.

Mr. Hollinsid said the blaze off Marsh Folly had probably been caused by natural causes.

He said: "What might have happened is the pile was so hot and over the last few weeks we have had a lot of rain which could have sped up the decomposing process. All that created a spontaneous combustion as the heat built up and reacted with the methane gas."

Works and Engineering Minister Dennis Lister said the mound had grown so high because the machines which break it down have been out of action for weeks.

"It's been a real concern to us as it has built."

He said one of the machines had broken down and the wrong spare parts had arrived while the second machine had gone down because it had been over-worked.

Mr. Lister urged people to hold off on bringing horticultural waste while newly arriving waste will be put elsewhere on the site far from the fire.

The blaze which produced flames more than 90 feet high sent smoke billowing across the island and forced the closure of the Hamilton Health Centre.

At press conference late yesterday Public Safety Minister David Burch said: "We are encouraging residents who are elderly, or who have respiratory issues or residents who have infants to consider making alternative living arrangements until the blaze has been fully extinguished."

He urged locals to close windows, drink bottled water and not tap water as the soot and smoke will have settled on roof tops. Residents were advised to block gutters to stop further tank contamination and the health department has warned people with respiratory illnesses to avoid the area.

And businesses were warned that air conditioning systems were likely to suck in smoke and pump it around buildings.

The emergency shelter at CedarBridge has been primed to take in evacuees but had not yet opened as of last night.

Fire Service spokesman Lt. Dana Lovell said: "Fires of this size sometimes stretch over two to three days. We will probably bring the bulk of the fire under control but there will be numerous hotspots that will have to be dealt with."

But he said it was difficult to predict and a change in wind direction could extend the fire. Off duty staff were called in and crews will work around the clock monitoring the situation. Fire crews used water drawn from a brackish pond on site.

Small fires at the dump are not uncommon as heat rises during the decomposing process.

Lt. Lovell said the Marsh Folly dump had about half a dozen smaller fires every year ? often dealt with by Works and Engineering staff onsite.

Fires at the dump were larger and more frequent years ago but fell away after the Tynes Bay Incinerator was built in the 1990s to burn trash and Marsh Folly became primarily for horticultural and animal waste. However Tynes Bay has also had its disasters.

In Christmas 2004 a towering mound of trash at the North Shore site, accumulated after a problem with a faulty shredding machine, led to a major fire that blazed for days and needed to be tackled by 98 fire fighters.

Ten years ago residents in the heavily built up Marsh Folly neighbourhood were promised the horticultural dump would be replaced by a park.

While work has continued on the prettying up the perimeter recently Government predicted it will be years before the Pembroke Park becomes a reality.

One sticking point is finding a new site to deal with horticultural waste.

Environmentalist Stuart Hayward lamented the fact that the prime site in the middle of Pembroke had been literally left to rot.

He said: "It doesn't seem to have the same level of urgency as for example more staff for the Premier."

And he noted on the day of the fire Parliament was debating a reduced allocation of around half a million dollars for the Environment Ministry to buy land.

"The average under the PLP has been $1.2 million so this is 50-60 percent below average."