A Civil Defense firefighter in Akkar. (Credit: Michel Hallak)
A fire that ravaged the forests of the village of Bzal in Akkar was brought under control on Tuesday at around 1 a.m., reports L'Orient-Le Jour's correspondent. The fire broke out from piles of waste on the roadsides in the Qaytaa plains, until it set fire to the neighboring forests.
This habit of setting fire to household waste to reduce its volume is common in Lebanon, especially in remote areas, in the absence of any waste management policy, which would lead to the reduction and treatment of the remains generated by the population.
Controlling the fire in Bzal required considerable efforts by the Civil Defense for more than twelve hours in a row, in collaboration with the NGO "The Akkar Trails" (Darb Akkar) and the federation of municipalities of the Qaytaa plains. An area of nearly seven hectares of green spaces went up in smoke, according to a provisional report. Firefighters were still on site Tuesday morning to cool the burning land, a necessary action to prevent a possible new outbreak of fire.
This article originally appeared in French in L'Orient-Le Jour.
