Firefighters Tuesday struggled to contain wildfires raging in Chouf, Aley and Metn that the director-general of Civil Defense, Raymond Khattar, has said are the worst to hit Lebanon in decades.
Fires that began early Monday morning in the Chouf’s Meshref area grew Monday night and Tuesday morning as high winds and dry conditions carried embers across large distances.
Dramatic videos show residents fleeing their homes in some areas of Chouf as the night sky glows orange. Other videos show at least a dozen fires burning across a large swath of mountainside.
Among the most heavily affected areas are Meshref and Debbieh in Chouf, and Mazraat Yeshou in Metn. All in all, Khattar said that there had been 104 fires on Lebanese territory in the last 24 hours.
“We’re speaking of many square kilometers; the fire was jumping from hill to hill due to the high winds,” he said.
Lebanese Army helicopters and planes provided by Cyprus were fighting the fires Tuesday morning as dozens of Civil Defense teams worked to extinguish blazes that entered residential areas.
Civil Defense has gone as far as borrowing riot control vehicles mounted with water guns to fight the fires in Chouf.
Five Civil Defense firefighters have sustained injuries in the line of duty, though Khattar said they were in stable condition.
{"preview_thumbnail":"https://cdn.flowplayer.com/6684a05f-6468-4ecd-87d5-a748773282a3/i/v-i-d…","video_id":"d261584e-e755-44f4-954b-20c2bd420608","player_id":"8ca46225-42a2-4245-9c20-7850ae937431","provider":"flowplayer","video":"US Withdraws All Troops From Northern Syria"}
“We woke up at 4:30 and the world was red,” a resident of a building in Metn told reporters. His building caught fire on the fifth floor, while the other floors remained unscorched, a testament to the size of the blaze, a member of Civil Defense told local media. “The fire was going over the building,” the Civil Defense member said.
“It was like a movie,” a Chouf resident affected by the blaze said. “We ran and woke up our neighbors, we were losing our minds.”
Environment Minister Fadi Jreissati told reporters in Chouf that that the risk of fires would remain high over the next three days. He also said that some fires may have been set intentionally.
“At some point we have to execute people who set fires,” he said.
As the fires continue to rage, many have called out the shortcomings of the state. Criticism has centered on the fact that three Sikorsky helicopters specialized for fighting fires are out of service because successive governments have failed to secure funds for maintenance and spare parts.
The helicopters were donated to the Lebanese state in 2009 and worked for several years, but have been grounded for at least five years due to the issue.
The Sikorskys can carry around 4,000 liters of water, while the Lebanese Army helicopters in use on Tuesday can only manage about 700 liters.
Interior Minister Raya El Hassan chaired a meeting of the National Operations Room for Risk and Disaster Management at around 10:15 a.m. Tuesday to assess the extent of the fires and ways to extinguish them quickly, a tweet from her account said.
This article has been adapted from its original source.
