02/10/2007 10:28 DEIR AL-QAMAR, Lebanon, Oct 2 (AFP)
Fifteen people were injured in fires that raged across forests and damaged houses to the north and east of the Lebanese capital on Tuesday, a local official said.
"Fifteen people suffered injuries and burns, while 20 others were treated for respiratory problems" in the Shouf mountains east of Beirut, Deir al-Qamar municipality official Edy Renno told AFP.
"About 10 houses were partly burnt in the same region. Most of them were damaged on the rooftops because fires reached nearby trees," he said.
He said several hectares of woods and valleys had caught fire in the ancient town of Deir al-Qamar and nearby villages where people wore surgical masks because of the smoke.
In valleys in and around Deir al-Qamar, acres of pine trees were burnt, an AFP correspondent at the scene said. Several electricity and telephone poles had collapsed on the side of the town's main road.
Renno said two square kilometers (almost one square mile) of forest had been damaged in Deir al-Qamar where army helicopter and fire engines were struggling to extinguish the fires.
Elias Nohra, a 42-year-old lawyer from Deir al-Qamar, told AFP that "the fires started last night at around 8 pm (1700 GMT) between Deir al-Qamar and (the nearby town of) Beiteddine."
"Guys from the region went out to extinquish the fires. They thought they did, but then in the morning, the fires started again and spread even more because of the wind,," he said.
Civil defence workers, backed by Lebanese army helicopters, were also deployed to extinguish blazes in the north of the country.
The fires "swept across hectares (acres) of forests" in Qobeyyat and Andaqt in northern Lebanon, forcing several schools to shut down, a civil defense official told AFP.
Police and civil defense could not confirm the cause of the fires that spread every year across mountainous regions in Lebanon toward the end of the dry summer season.
Fifteen people were injured in fires that raged across forests and damaged houses to the north and east of the Lebanese capital on Tuesday, a local official said.
"Fifteen people suffered injuries and burns, while 20 others were treated for respiratory problems" in the Shouf mountains east of Beirut, Deir al-Qamar municipality official Edy Renno told AFP.
"About 10 houses were partly burnt in the same region. Most of them were damaged on the rooftops because fires reached nearby trees," he said.
He said several hectares of woods and valleys had caught fire in the ancient town of Deir al-Qamar and nearby villages where people wore surgical masks because of the smoke.
In valleys in and around Deir al-Qamar, acres of pine trees were burnt, an AFP correspondent at the scene said. Several electricity and telephone poles had collapsed on the side of the town's main road.
Renno said two square kilometers (almost one square mile) of forest had been damaged in Deir al-Qamar where army helicopter and fire engines were struggling to extinguish the fires.
Elias Nohra, a 42-year-old lawyer from Deir al-Qamar, told AFP that "the fires started last night at around 8 pm (1700 GMT) between Deir al-Qamar and (the nearby town of) Beiteddine."
"Guys from the region went out to extinquish the fires. They thought they did, but then in the morning, the fires started again and spread even more because of the wind,," he said.
Civil defence workers, backed by Lebanese army helicopters, were also deployed to extinguish blazes in the north of the country.
The fires "swept across hectares (acres) of forests" in Qobeyyat and Andaqt in northern Lebanon, forcing several schools to shut down, a civil defense official told AFP.
Police and civil defense could not confirm the cause of the fires that spread every year across mountainous regions in Lebanon toward the end of the dry summer season.
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