Arab Weather - Fires on the Syrian coast continue to rage for the fourth consecutive day, amid threats of looming environmental collapse as the global climate crisis escalates. Hundreds of thousands of forest trees have been consumed across an area estimated at 10,000 hectares in 28 locations, reduced to ash by the blazes.
The Syrian Minister of Emergency Situations stated that 80 teams from the Syrian Civil Defense and the Ministry of Emergency Situations and Disaster Management are making significant efforts to extinguish the fires in the mountainous areas of Latakia Governorate in western Syria, prompting authorities to declare the situation a major environmental and climate disaster.
Arab Weather forecasters said that the region experienced hot and dry weather conditions in June, amidst the lack of rainfall in recent months. This may have been a major factor in the spread of fires due to dry soil in forested areas.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) told Agence France-Presse that Syria has not experienced such severe weather conditions in 60 years, noting that an unprecedented drought will leave more than 16 million people vulnerable to food insecurity.
Civil Defense warned on Saturday that the explosion of war remnants and munitions has made it more difficult for firefighters to extinguish the blazes in the Latakia countryside.
Jordanian Civil Defense teams began participating in extinguishing forest fires in the Latakia Governorate on the Syrian coast on Sunday. The Syrian Civil Defense announced in a post on its Facebook page today that Jordanian Civil Defense teams had set out to areas on the Syrian coast to support Syrian Civil Defense firefighting teams in extinguishing forest fires in the Latakia countryside.
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