Latakia-SANA
The meeting, which was held in the Lattakia Governorate building and included directors of public institutions, regions and districts and heads of administrative units, discussed the firefighting management plan at the governorate level and the role of each party in the process of prevention, control and protection of forests.
The Minister of Local Administration and Environment in the caretaker government, Eng. Hussein Makhlouf, stressed during the meeting that the plan sets as a priority measures to prevent and report on fires and speed of intervention, which requires concerted efforts in cooperation with the people and committees that were formed at the level of each administrative unit to protect forests and agricultural lands out of concern for the protection of forests and agricultural lands. Not to repeat the disaster of the fires that afflicted the province and other provinces last year.
Minister Makhlouf indicated that the committees are concerned with setting up shift programs responsible for following up the wrong practices that cause fires in forests and parks, setting fires for the purposes of getting rid of weeds and others, and distributing capabilities to reduce the spread of fire and its losses, explaining that the purpose of these efforts is to create an integrated system in fighting fires through community involvement. The local councils, the district and district directorates, agriculture and the farmers’ union with firefighting efforts, civil defense, forestry departments, and supporting bodies such as technical services, service institutions and construction companies in each governorate.
In turn, the Director of Agriculture, Eng. Munther Khair Bek, indicated in a statement to SANA reporter about the measures taken by the directorate to reduce fires, including limiting the mechanisms of the private sector to be placed at the disposal of the spatial committees in the administrative units when there is a need to achieve rapid intervention and rehabilitation of many water tanks to facilitate the supply of water to the mechanisms and the installation of 16 tanks Water in areas that suffer from water scarcity, restoration of forest roads and fire lines, and increase of cadres and mechanisms that have been equipped to deal with fires.
For his part, the commander of the Latakia Fire Brigade, Major Muhannad Jaafar, pointed out that the regiment includes 40 vehicles and works in coordination with the rest of the firefighting system to be fully prepared to face the fires. In avoiding fires and maintaining vegetation cover.
The head of the Fadra Municipality, Lawyer Ahmed Asbar, drew attention to the great role played by the local councils after the formation of local committees regarding fires in them, and the importance of the existing coordination, such as practical monitoring, reporting on fires, the perpetrators, and the actual participation in extinguishing the fires at their inception to mitigate the damage.
Head of the Forestry Department in the Directorate of Agriculture, Engineer Basem Doba, stressed the importance of expanding the circle of participation among all segments of society in the face of fires, considering that if these measures are applied, it will reflect positively on fire prevention, speed of reporting and intervention, noting that the meeting stopped at many needs and difficulties encountered in the work. Extinguishing to take its way into the solution.
The meeting was attended by the Governor of Latakia, Ibrahim Khader Al-Salem, the Secretary of the Latakia branch of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, and the President of the Provincial Council, Eng. Tayseer Habib.
Bassam Ibrahim