Latakia - Sana
The Minister of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform, Eng. Muhammad Hassan Qatana, confirmed that the firefighters are working day and night to put out the fires that broke out in the countryside of three governorates, pointing out that there is a committee that will be formed to assess the damage and the possibility of compensation for farmers.
Engineer Qatana said in a statement to SANA's correspondent in Lattakia: “In principle, we reassure the peasant brothers who own private properties whose olive trees have been burned.
He added, "All the effort exerted to surround the fires and there is cooperation with the local community ... We counted the causes of the fires and it appeared to us that 72 percent were caused by the peasants' fields where there are herbs and pruning products that the peasants burn and the air comes on them, so they extend towards the fields and forest trees to cause a fire that harms people, the environment and the country, calling on the farmers." To clean and plow their lands to prevent and prevent such fires.
The Minister of Agriculture indicated the concerted efforts of ministries in extinguishing fires, as there are currently more than 70 tanks in the sites in addition to bulldozers and wheel loaders, and we have harnessed all the mechanisms in the Ministry of Agriculture in fruitful afforestation projects to participate in extinguishing fires.
In turn, the Minister of Local Administration and Environment, Engineer Hussein Makhlouf, confirmed in a similar statement that the fire brigades continue to extinguish the burning fires since last night, indicating the necessity of concerting all capabilities and efforts due to the rugged areas and the difficulty of connecting to the hotbeds.
Makhlouf explained that the large number of fires, whether in Latakia, Tartous or Homs, in addition to the ruggedness of the region and the movement of winds, contributed to the rapid spread of them, which necessitated harnessing all capabilities and energies from all Syrian governorates from Damascus and its countryside, Aleppo and industrial cities to support in extinguishing those fires in addition to concerted efforts. The civil defense and the extinguishing of the agricultural forest and the civil society together with the valiant of our Syrian Arab Army who were partners with us in extinguishing the fires, especially those close to homes.
For his part, Governor of Latakia Ibrahim Khader Al-Salem pointed out in a similar statement that all firefighting teams in the governorate, along with civil defense personnel, went to the hotspots since the first hour of reporting them, but the large areas in which the fires spread and in more than one geographical area far apart, where the number of fires reached up Now, about 40 fires have caused great damage, and the areas that the fires have destroyed in Lattakia are estimated at about 600 hectares so far, which have led to the burning of virgin forests and contain various and rare plants.
Al-Salem pointed out that 14 fires were completely extinguished while the rest of the fires continued to be monitored in the governorate, explaining that the strong winds, which reached more than 70 km per hour and low humidity, helped ignite the fires and spread to large areas, pointing to the participation of more than 85 firefighting mechanisms in the fire suppression operations in addition to the engineering mechanisms .