A new wildfire burns in Akkar. (Credit: Michel Hallak/L'Orient-Le Jour)
BEIRUT — A fire broke out Wednesday afternoon near Chaouiyeh, in the village of Mashha, in the Akkar region of North Lebanon, L’Orient Today’s correspondent in the area reported, adding that the flames had reached olive groves.
Here’s what we know:
• Villagers tried to extinguish the fire while waiting for the arrival of Civil Defense volunteers.
• Last weekend, green areas were ravaged by a series of fires that broke out across Lebanon, due in part to unseasonably high temperatures and also to possible “criminal factors,” according to Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi. One man, an Egyptian national, died on Saturday in one of these incidents.
• During the summer, hundreds of hectares of forest were destroyed by fires in Akkar. In addition to the natural elements, such as the strength of the winds and the inaccessibility of some areas where the fires occur, the Civil Defense has had to face a lack of equipment and funding, due to the country’s ongoing economic crisis, which presents an additional difficulty in battling raging wildfires.