Fire Again in Ilam Forests; After One Day, the Fire is 'Still Not Controlled'

A month after a fire affected '100 hectares' of forests in Ilam, reports indicate that '200 hectares' of forests in the city of 'Sirvan' in this province have also been on fire since Thursday, July 25, and after one day, this fire is still not fully controlled. According to the state news agency IRNA, Gholamreza Fathi, the commander of the Natural Resources Protection Unit in Ilam Province, announced on Friday afternoon that four rounds of firefighting operations had been carried out using water-dropping helicopters and that a water-dropping plane is expected to arrive in Ilam shortly. Mr. Fathi stated that 'a large part' of this fire has been contained, 'but it is still not completely controlled.' He also mentioned that the possibility of the fire spreading 'has been significantly reduced' and there is no danger of the fire expanding again. According to IRNA, on Thursday evening, a conflict between two residents of the village of 'Shah Qalandar Aliyah in the Karzan district of Sirvan County' due to family disputes led to one of their deaths, and the killer also set fire to the victim's agricultural products. The report states that due to the wind and the proximity of the fire to forested areas and the protected area of 'Qalarang,' the fire quickly engulfed large sections of the forested areas. According to Morad Yeganeh, the governor of Sirvan, two individuals involved in this fire have been arrested. He also stated that '200 hectares' of the forests in this area have been consumed by the fire. The commander of the Environmental Protection Unit in Ilam also mentioned that the high altitude, steep slopes, wind, dry cover, and dense forest and pasture have made controlling the fire 'difficult and slow.' Forested areas in Ilam Province have repeatedly caught fire since the beginning of this year, and parts of these forests have been destroyed. Reports indicate that in the forest fires in Ilam Province on June 14 and 15, at least 100 hectares of these forests were damaged. Ilam Province has 640,000 hectares of forest, most of which is oak forest. In recent months, reports of widespread fires in forested areas of other provinces in Iran have also been published. Meanwhile, Qasem Sabzeali, the commander of the Forests and Pastures Protection Unit of Iran, reported on Friday, July 19, that this spring, compared to last year, the number of fires in Iran's pastures and forests increased by 20 percent, and the area of the fires also increased by 15 percent. In this context, there has been a '50 percent' increase in the area of forest fires in Iran this year and a '20 percent' increase in fires in Iran's pastures and forests.