Winter wildfires burning Gilan forests amid drought
Wildfires have been burning in several counties of the Northern Gilan Province over the past two days, with warm winds and carelessness of tourists in starting and leaving fires mentioned as the cause.
Kamiar Marzbani, director of natural resources and watershed management in Gilan, stated on Tuesday that eight wildfires across four counties have been extinguished, but the blaze continues in Rudbar and Siakhkal forests, where fire brigade has been stationed to combat to contain the flames.
He added that a total of 55 hectares of forest areas in these two counties has been affected by fires, according to him. So far, a total of 12 hectares of forests in the province have been superficially burned.
He called on the public to report fire incidents in forests and grasslands through hotlines 1504 and 139 to enable timely action to control the blaze.
Gilan Province, known as the green region of the country, boasts 565,000 hectares of forests and 224,000 hectares of grasslands. Simultaneously, the director of natural resources and watershed management in Mazandaran Province warned on Tuesday of increased temperatures and the risk of wildfires in the forests of the province in the next 24 hours.
Mehrdad Khazaeipoul said the rise in temperature, decrease in humidity, and dryness of vegetation have risen the likelihood of wildfires in forests and grasslands, adding that the province’s fire brigade is fully prepared to contain any such incident. According to him, several superficial wildfires in the western part of the province occurred, but were successfully controlled due to prompt response by firefighters and volunteers.
Mazandaran Province homes around 1.7 million hectares of natural areas, including forests and grasslands.
These two northern provinces of Iran are home to the largest forest areas in the country, including the ancient UNESCO-inscribed Hyrcanian forests. Droughts in recent years have caused these dense forests to fall victim to wildfires.
Earlier, in November, a vast area of these forests in Mazandaran was engulfed by fires that, despite the deployment of five helicopters and a Il-76 water-bomber, continued for days and burned hundreds of hectares of these forests.