During a tour of the areas affected by fires, the Minister of Agriculture affirms mobilizing efforts to re-afforestation

Working on mobilizing all governmental and civil efforts and initiatives for the reforestation of the areas  that were hit by fire during this period and to involve the local community in this effort and to take preventive measures so the fire doesn’t happen  were the most important issues that were agreed upon during yesterday’s meeting of the Minister of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform, Eng. Muhammad Hassan Qatna, and parties concerned in Hama Governorate at the headquarters of the General Authority for Forest Management and Development.

The Minister of Agriculture stressed that the next stage represents a great challenge to implement agricultural plans in light of the current circumstances, underlining the necessity to exert efforts to reforest the sites that have been exposed to fires and encroachments and to compensate for the lost plant cover by intensifying afforestation campaigns and supporting programs and plans to involve the local community in protecting them during the next period.

Qatana indicated in a press statement while touring the sites of fires in the areas of Al-Frikeh, Ain Selimou, Ain Badriya and Nubl Al-Khatib in Al-Ghab region that the aim of the tour is to determine the extent of the damage caused to the forest as a result of the fire and to determine the needs of the people affected by it, announcing that committees will be formed to assess the fire damage in relation to the properties of citizens.

Qatna called for taking all precautionary measures to prevent the recurrence of fires and to discover their causes, explaining that this year the forests were severely damaged by the fires. The fires  concentrated in the governorates of Homs, Hama and Latakia, including the Al-Ghab region, noting that the ruggedness of the area undermined the ability of the firefighters  to control the fires, but despite all that, specialized teams were able to intervene in a timely manner and contributed to controlling the hotbeds of the fire.

The area affected by the fire is estimated to be up to 2000 dunums, most of which are forests of conifers and oaks, Qatan said, stressing that there was no human loss  as a result of the evacuation of the people from their homes temporarily due to the condensation of smoke.

For his part, the governor of Hama, Dr. Muhammad Al-Hazouri, explained that after the fire was put out, the electricity and telephone maintenance workshops began their work to repair the malfunctions resulting from the fire.

Engineer Fayez Al-Muhammad, Director of Natural Resources at the General Authority for the Management and Development of the Forest, announced in a statement to SANA that the firefighting teams were able to control 80 percentage of fire in the northwestern countryside of Hama.

Inas Abdulkareem