The „Krasta” landfill in Kumanovo is burning, and the firefighting is being done by one rented machine and one machine belonging to the public utility. That is the entire fleet the city has at its disposal against a hotspot that Sašo Tomić, head of „Čistota i zelenilo”, openly calls a chronic problem.

„The landfill is still smoking, we are working intensively. It is a chronic, well-known problem”, Tomić said. The utility has requested additional machinery from the Government, the Municipality and the Crisis Management Centre. Crews are dumping soil on the critical spots every day.

The trouble is that soil is not a solution, it is a postponement. The methane generated inside the landfill keeps breaking through - while some spots are being sealed, smoke appears at others. The southerly wind reignites hotspots that had looked extinguished.

„We need construction machinery, bulldozers and additional equipment”, Tomić says. The utility is at the same time acting on the findings of the State Environmental Inspectorate, but there too they stress that without serious systemic support „Krasta” remains a high risk.

That is where the real story sits. The landfill is not new, the methane is not a surprise, and the inspection findings exist. What is missing is not information - what is missing is a decision. A single municipal utility with two machines cannot fix a regional landfill, and that is not its fault. The question is who holds that authority and how many years it has been sitting unused while Kumanovo breathes in the product.