Police have opened investigations into several bush fires that have erupted on the island of Grand Bahama. This move came after a resident’s claims that the fires were set intentionally and presented video evidence.

Grand Bahama resident Donald Duncombe was trained in fire fighting at the University of Nevada. He told ZNS News, “one of the things that puzzled me about the fire, it seemed to have started in the underbrush of the casuarina trees and my knowledge of casuarina trees and everything like that would indicate that that couldn’t have been a natural occurrence.”

Another Grand Bahama resident released video as evidence that the fires were an act of arson. Duncombe said, “his video is the most compelling of it all because you can see that the individual, you have to say individual because it can’t be natural, the individual used the palm branch to start the fire.”

Environmentalist, Joseph Darville opined that he believes the fires were a natural occurrence. He said, “I counted one area probably less than a quarter of a mile, 170 bottles, these are beer bottles, liquor bottles etc. People have no regard for the earth, they just drink and they just toss the stuff into the pine forest and of course with the excessive heat we’ve been having and the drought at the same time these things create spontaneous fires.”

Police released a statement acknowledging the videos and arson allegations. They also announced that an Investigation Task Force comprising of officers from the Criminal Investigations Department and the Fire Service of Grand Bahama has been launched to investigation the fires.