More than 300 people were deployed to put out a fire on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest peak in northeastern Tanzania, local authorities said on Saturday.
The fire, whose origin is still unknown, is raging near the Karanga camp, a mountaineer’s stop located some 4,000 meters above sea level on the southern slopes of the “roof of Africa”, 5,895 meters high.
This fire occurs exactly two years after a fire that had devastated, during a week in October 2020, 95 km2 of runways, without causing fatalities.
The regional authorities indicated in the early afternoon that it did not threaten the tourists present in this mountain, very frequented by lovers of trekking and mountaineering.
Can’t access the site
The exact extent of the fire, which broke out on Friday night and was fanned by strong winds that blew through the area overnight, remained undetermined at the end of the day on Saturday, according to regional authorities.
A plane carrying local officials and officials from the National Parks Agency (Tanapa) to assess the situation was unable to access the site on Saturday afternoon.
“Heavy clouds and smoke prevented us from reaching the burning area,” Kilimanjaro region prefect Nurdin Babu told reporters. “We’ll try again when the situation improves a bit,” he added.
“We cannot comment on the extent of the fire at this time because the focus is on controlling the fire,” regional police chief Yahaya Mdogo said in the early afternoon.
Then to add: “We have no information on the impact on the population, apart from the fact that scrub (vegetation) is burned.”
Videos circulating on social media showed the flames devouring vegetation, releasing thick plumes of gray smoke.
iconic mountain
More than 300 people, including local residents, mobilized to prevent the spread of the fire, Yahaya Mdogo said.
“Tanapa staff, police, firefighters, Mweka (village) Wildlife University students and employees of the tour operator Zara Tours are working hard to control the fire,” his colleague from the Tanapa side said in a brief press release. .
Kilimanjaro, an emblematic mountain whose snow-capped peak is known throughout the world, and the area around it are listed as a national park, listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. With a total area of more than 75,000 hectares (more than 750 km2), the park is home to a remarkable ecosystem, including a fauna made up of elephants, buffalo, antelope…
This volcanic massif made up of three peaks (Kibo, Mawenzi, Shira) is not immune to global warming, which considerably dries out its vegetation, successively made up of plains, mountain forests and highland moors, before an alpine desert and the peak of the mountain.
The “snows of Kilimanjaro” celebrated by Ernest Hemingway could even disappear by 2040, according to a 2011 report by the World Meteorological Organization, the UN weather agency, on Africa’s climate situation.
The area covered by glaciers has been reduced by 85% in a century, from 11.40 km2 in 1912 to 1.76 km2 in 2011.
Source: BFM TV
