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Fatri, Lebanon (AFP) Dec 5, 2010 Firefighters in Lebanon battled a forest blaze on Sunday that has raged out of control for the past week, and frightened villagers north of Beirut fled as flames threatened to engulf their homes. As an international flotilla of firefighting planes in neighbouring Israel finally brought under control the largest fire in that nation's history after a four-day battle, 42 separate blazes were reported in Lebanon, four of them large, the civil defence services said. President Michel Sleiman travelled to the village of Fatri, 45 kilometres (30 miles) north of Beirut to inspect efforts to control the blaze, which has devastated 150,000 square metres (1.6 million square feet) of woodland. Municipal council leader Imad Daou told AFP that rough terrain hampered the firefighting effort while high winds had fanned the flames. "Trees more than 100 years old, olive groves and pines have been lost," he said. No lives have been reported lost, but six civil defence personnel have suffered minor injuries. Frightened villagers began to flee from their homes on Sunday. Lebanese army helicopters tried to douse the flames from the air, while firefighters battled the blaze on the ground. In Ankara, a diplomat said two Turkish firefighting planes that had been used to battle the Israel inferno would fly to Lebanon on Monday to help tackle the blaze there. The decision was taken after Prime Minister Saad Hariri asked Turkey to help, the diplomat added. A civil defence official said Lebanon's emergency services were fighting "numerous fires" in different parts of the country fuelled by tinderbox conditions. Another large blaze raged on Sunday in the Wadi Shahrur area close to the capital, also threatening homes. "We need three times more capacity to face these fires," Interior Minister Ziad Baroud told reporters. "The inability to put out the fires is due to a lack of strategy," Sleiman told LBC television. "We must work out a national plan to fight fires," he said, adding his regret that "political tensions delay everything." According to the meteorological service, Lebanon has recorded just 51.2 millimetres (two inches) of rain since September, compared with 214.8 millimetres in the same period last year. South of the border in Israel, affected by the same extended summer conditions and drought, 41 people died in the fire that was finally brought under control on Sunday. burs/srm
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World pitches in as Israel wages air battle against infernoIsfiya, Israel (AFP) Dec 4, 2010 The massive blaze ripping through northern Israel consumed yet more swathes of land on Saturday, flaring up at nightfall as the waterbombers stopped work and high winds fanned the flames. But after a day in which more than a dozen international firefighting planes and helicopters worked tirelessly to douse the flames, officials were cautiously optimistic that the tide might finally be turnin ... read more |
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