The Civil Defense Directorate in Lattakia province, northwestern Syria, announced on Saturday the control of 80% of the fires raging in the Kasab area in the northern countryside of the province, while firefighting continues in the western countryside of Hama province (central).
The Syrian official news agency SANA quoted the Civil Defense Director in Lattakia, Abdul Kafi Kiyal, saying that “firefighting and civil defense teams managed to control 80% of the fires in the Kasab area.”
Kiyal, responsible for the coastal fire extinguishing operations room, added that “firefighting efforts are still ongoing, currently including cooling and monitoring operations at several sites, including Al-Maabar trees and Chalma junction.”
He explained that firefighting teams face difficulty reaching some burning spots in Wadi Al-Nabaein in Al-Musharafa village due to rough terrain, describing those spots as “simple but currently difficult to deal with.”
He pointed out that monitoring teams will continue to follow up 24 hours a day to ensure full control and extinguish all fires.
Meanwhile, the Civil Defense Director in Hama, Mohammad Abu Al-Eisa, said firefighting operations “continue in the western countryside of the province in cooperation with popular and governmental teams to prevent the fires from reaching civilians’ homes.”
Abu Al-Eisa added, according to the official Syrian News Channel website, that “civil defense teams continue to fight fires spreading in the Masyaf area for the seventh consecutive day.”
He added that “firefighting teams worked to combat fires that reached the town of Shatha west of Hama through mountain chains and also worked to open a security cordon in the area to prevent the fires from reaching civilians’ homes.”
He pointed out that “the speed of strong winds contributed to the greater spread of fires, which required requesting more reinforcements, including water tankers from other provinces such as the capital Damascus and Homs (central), and plans were made to secure a larger number of tankers to prevent fires from reaching residential areas.”
Regarding active fire spots in the area, Abu Al-Eisa explained that “there is a fire spot in the town of Shatha currently being dealt with to prevent the fires from reaching residential areas in the town.”
He added that “a fire broke out yesterday evening (Friday) in the town of Jorin and spread over a wide area, where civil defense teams worked to isolate it and prevent it from reaching civilians’ homes,” noting that “work is currently underway on the two spots to fully control them.”
In the same context, civil defense teams evacuated several homes in the town of Shatha on Friday after the forest fire reached residential areas, according to the Syrian News Channel.
The channel added that civil defense members “evacuated some citizens from their homes, treated others for smoke inhalation, and some suffered minor injuries due to the fire in the area.”
With the onset of summer, many Syrian provinces, especially the countryside of Lattakia, witnessed forest fires due to rising temperatures, exacerbated by dense trees, drought, and strong winds, making extinguishing efforts more difficult.
Firefighting teams from civil defense, firefighting brigades, and forestry, supported by reinforcements from several provinces, participate in extinguishing operations, alongside local residents’ efforts near fire sites.
Last July, forest fires broke out in the mountains of Lattakia province, lasting 12 days and destroying more than 16,000 hectares of forest, including 2,200 hectares of agricultural land, affecting 45 villages and about 1,200 families, according to official estimates.
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