Fire Damages One-Third of Karkheh National Park in Khuzestan

The head of the Environmental Protection Department of Shush reported that a fire affected 62 hectares of Karkheh National Park in Khuzestan province, describing the damages as 'heavy.' According to the state news agency IRNA, Firouz Hajikeli stated on Sunday, July 18, that in this fire, three thousand trees, one thousand five hundred saplings of 'Ghaz' and 'Padeh' species, and one thousand bushes were burned over an area of 62 hectares. He announced that the financial damages from this fire exceeded 600 million tomans. This environmental official mentioned that the possibility of the fire being caused by local herders is under investigation, but the heat and dryness of the weather played a role in its spread. Hajikeli also stated that the fire was contained on Friday but reignited and was ultimately extinguished early Saturday morning. Karkheh National Park (Karkheh Protected Area), covering approximately 200 hectares, is home to various plant and animal species, including the Iranian yellow deer. In recent months, many forests in Iran have caught fire. For instance, a fire in the heights of 'Pasargad' in Fars province at the end of June led to the destruction of at least three thousand hectares of vegetation, including several trees aged '200 to 500 years.' Last year, many reports about forest fires in Iran were published. Khodakaram Jalali, head of the Forests Organization, reported in May that over 44 thousand hectares of Iran's forests burned last year, a record high in the past 12 years. Qasem Sabzali, commander of the Natural Resources Protection Unit of Iran, provided different statistics, stating that 18 thousand hectares of Iranian land were exposed to fire last year, of which less than 30 percent was in forests and pastures. The lack of water-dropping planes and helicopters has been cited as one of the reasons for the slow response to extinguishing fires in Iran's forests.