Fire in Rabieh on Oct. 22. (Credit: L'Orient Today staff)
BEIRUT — A fire in the forests of Rabweh (Metn district), that was extinguished on Monday, broke out again on Tuesday and expanded significantly, the state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported.
According to NNA, the Civil Defense is having difficulty putting out the fire due to the strong winds and the ruggedness of the area. Meanwhile, residents are appealing to the concerned parties to intervene to prevent the fire from reaching homes.
According to residents of Beit Misk, a locality overlooking the burning valley and interviewed by L'Orient-Le Jour, the fire has spread at least to the outskirts of the localities of Kornet Chehwane, Jouret el-Ballout, and Bsalim due to the wind. The smoke rising from the fire blankets Broummana, Baabdate, and the Metn valley further south.
Firefighters have deployed several trucks, particularly along the highway connecting Beirut to Baabdate, which has also been engulfed in smoke for several hours.
Civil Defense spokesperson Elie Khairallah told L'Orient Today on Monday that "usually such fires are man-made," adding that they can be intentional or unintentional.
In the evening, the Lebanese Civil Defense announced in a press release that it was continuing efforts to extinguish "the large fire devastating vast areas of grass and trees in a steep, hard-to-reach area with no road access." It added that the Lebanese army had dispatched helicopters to assist and prevent the flames from reaching "nearby residential buildings," but high wind speeds had hampered their operations.
The Civil Defense also reported that four firefighters had been injured and hospitalized, mainly due to "collapsing rocks."