Lázaro Cárdenas, Q.R. — A group of residents in the town of Kantunilkín needed help from the fire department after a small tree smoke turned into flames. The intentionally set smoke was made inside a crook of a dry tree to get rid of wild wasps.
Firemen responded to their request for assistance in the residential neighborhood of Terencio Tah Friday morning when the smoke turned to flames and the fire began to grow. Residents were trying to get rid of a nest of wild wasps known locally as ‘’ek’ by creating smoke in a branch crook of the tree.
Alex Eroza Betancuort, head of the Kantunilkín Fire Department, said residents set a small fire in a flamboyant tree that was home to a swarm of dangerous wasps. It did not take long for the small fire to grow and threaten to catch the entire tree and spread to nearby palapa-roofed homes, which is when they called the fire department.
Large wild wasp nests are common in the jungle regions of Quintana Roo, often found constructed on vegetation such as trees and the underside of large palm leaves. Smoke is commonly used to force insects such as bees and wasps from their nests.