Forest fires continue to rage in Lebanon
Pastor Dale Morgan
Forest fires continue to rage in Lebanon*
02 Oct 2007 13:41:00 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Jamal Saidi
DEIR AL-QAMAR, Lebanon, Oct 2 (Reuters) - Forest fires blazed in several
areas of Lebanon on Tuesday, including around the ancient town of Deir
al-Qamar, a world heritage site.
"Most of Deir al-Qamar is engulfed in thick, black smoke. There's not
one wooded area left. Some villas are ablaze, cars are burnt, the phone
and electricity lines are burnt," resident Joseph al-Itr told Reuters by
telephone.
About 85 fires started on Tuesday and 118 on Monday, the head of the
Lebanese Civil Defence, Brigadier General Darweesh Hobeika, told
Reuters. A civil defence source estimated the fires had destroyed around
100 hectares of woodland.
"It's a 95 percent possibility that the fires were caused intentionally
by people trying to obtain charcoal as a cheaper substitute for fuel,"
Hobeika said.
The source said 60-70 percent of the fires had been contained but some
still raged in Rashayya in the eastern Bekaa Valley and Barouk in the
southeastern Shouf region.
The blazes were worst in the area around Deir al-Qamar, a well-preserved
Christian town in the Shouf that is a UNESCO world heritage site.
Television footage showed several burned-out cars on roads in the Shouf
region and smoke billowing from thick forests.
The town's deputy governor described the fires as an environmental disaster.
Big fires were also reported in the northern region of Akkar and several
in the Metn area northeast of Beirut.
Local media said some residents had been evacuated from their homes.
Nine people trying to fight fires in the north had suffered from smoke
inhalation, hospital sources said.
The Lebanese Committee for the Prevention of Fires urged authorities to
declare a state of emergency. "Lebanon is on the brink of
desertification and the woodlands no longer exceed 10 percent (of its
area)," it said in the statement.
Lebanon's interior minister requested fire-fighting planes from Italy,
the National News Agency reported. (Additional reporting by Beirut bureau)