Hummus-Sana
Firefighting and civil defense teams continue their efforts to control the fires that broke out this evening in the woods of the town of “near Ali” and Jabal Al-Sayeh in the western countryside of Homs.
The governor of Homs, Bassam Parsik, said in a statement to Al-Suriya TV, “The firefighting crews continue to extinguish the fire that broke out in the woodland of a town near Ali in the western countryside of Homs, and which spread as a result of the winds to Wadi Al-Jamous on the administrative borders between Homs and Tartous.”
Parsik indicated that the ruggedness of the area, its height and the lack of roads to it posed the greatest challenge to the firefighting teams, while helicopters were used to prevent the fire from spreading to other areas.
Parsik pointed out that the natural factors, especially the movement and direction of the wind, prevented complete control of the fire at a time when efforts are being made between the people and the participating teams to put out the fire completely.
For his part, Colonel Nofal Hassan, Assistant Director of Civil Defense in Homs, told SANA's correspondent that the firefighting and civil defense teams managed to control the fire in Jabal Al-Sayeh in the western countryside of Homs, while continuing their efforts to extinguish the fire in the area near Ali.
Hassan confirmed that all firefighters in Homs have been working since this morning to extinguish the fires that broke out in a number of villages in the western countryside and have been able to extinguish them and are currently working on cooling some hotspots in the Al-Sayeh mountain to prevent them from re-igniting, while the fire trucks are still working to extinguish the fire that broke out. In the village near Ali, which extends towards the adjacent woods from the direction of Tartous Governorate.
Hassan added that the strong winds and the difficult topography of the area hinder the work of firefighting teams, and wheel loaders and bulldozers are currently working to open roads between forests in a village near Ali to enable firefighting vehicles to put out the fire, expecting it to be controlled during the morning hours.
For his part, Colonel Othman Juda, commander of the Homs Fire Brigade, explained that all the firefighting teams from the Fire Brigade, Civil Defense and the Homs Agriculture Directorate were able today to extinguish the fires that erupted largely in the villages of Ain Al-Khadra, Umm Al-Adham, Al-Jaafriyat, Zweitina, Umm Al-Mays and Tarin.
