NEW ORLEANS: Nine months after Hurricane Katrina’s wind and floods laid waste to huge sections of New Orleans, a third element — fire — is slowly taking a toll on the city’s historic architecture. A rash of fires and a fire department short on equipment and manpower, are hampering rebuilding and leaving gaping holes in some of the three-century-old city’s neighbourhoods.

“We’ve lost a lot in the city,” said New Orleans Fire Department superintendent Charles Parent.

With the city’s population down by more than half from before the storm, firefighters are receiving fewer calls. But the intensity and duration of the blazes are up dramatically.

More than 1,260 fires have been logged since Katrina hit on Aug 29. Four, including a huge blaze last week that claimed two abandoned wharves on the Mississippi, were five-alarm fires, meaning over 90 firefighters and 32 fire engines and other vehicles were called in from across the city.

In a typical year, Parent said, the department might respond to one or two five-alarm fires.

So far, no one has been killed in the fires, but they worry preservationists already reeling from the loss of an untold number of old buildings to Katrina.

“It’s the sort of thing that makes you, as a preservationist or just somebody who loves old buildings or old New Orleans neighbourhoods, it makes you feel terribly discouraged,” said Stephanie Bruno, director of the non-profit Preservation Resource Center’s Operation Comeback programme.

Leaky gas pipes and storm-damaged electrical systems have raised fire risks. Many blazes, such as the wharf fires, have been blamed on construction and demolition crews.

Others, including an April 3 blaze that damaged a downtown hotel, have been attributed to transient workers squatting in abandoned homes and buildings.

Others are believed to have been deliberately set by building owners whose property was not covered by flood or wind insurance. —Reuters