North-Press Agency
Administrators and local officials in the city of Kobani and its countryside, northeast of Aleppo, are concerned about the shortage of fire engines to fight fires that may occur during the current agricultural season, in light of farmers’ fears of a repeat of the last season’s fires which destroyed tens of thousands of acres of crops before harvest. The Kobani region requires 15 firetrucks to be able to fight potential agricultural fires, according to the Municipal Committee in Kobani.
Three trucks
Ammar Haj, who has worked as a firefighter for 17 years in Kobani city, told North-Press that they only have three engines compared to the five that were available last year after one was allocated to the Municipal Sanitation Department and another was sent to the General Administration of the Environment.
He added, “We are also lacking first-aid kits, fireproof clothing, and fire extinguishers for vehicle fires which firefighters themselves are exposed to in the line of duty.” He pointed out that a fire last year caused a firetruck to catch fire, burning the driver.
Last year, the firefighting team in the city of Kobani extinguished around 400 fires in the city’s countryside using the five municipal firetrucks and tanks belonging to the military structure, according to the fire station in Kobani.
The Kobani fire station also lacks oxygen tanks for firefighters, “so they can work during the fire, as the percentage of oxygen in the air decreases when they enter burning agricultural lands. This means that sometimes they lose consciousness,” according to Haj.
A member of the Kobani fire station pointed out the role of the populace in the success of firefighting operations, and appealed to them to help in the event of crop fires by giving firetrucks the right of way so that they can reach fires as quickly as possible and extinguish them.
Unequipped tanks
Rahima Ali, co-chair of the municipality of Bindir in Kobani’s western countryside, said that a large proportion of fire damage last year occurred “due to the lack of firefighters in the municipality.”
She added that in Bindir, they were relying on a small tank with no pump to extinguish fires, forcing them to contact the municipality of al-Qenaya or the city of Kobani to ask for assistance, as “the firetrucks arrived after a large percentage of crops were already burned.”
The municipality of Bindir includes 62 villages, most of which depend on wheat, barley, olive, and pistachio cultivation.
Ali is calling on the sending of at least one firefighter to the municipality before harvest time, noting that they have applied to the Municipal Council twice for firefighters, but “there has been no response so far, neither in the affirmative nor in the negative.”
The co-chair of Bindir assures that the risks will be great if a fire engine is not provided this year, as “the tank we have is small and not sufficient to deal with 62 villages, let alone the 24 villages that need drinking water.”
Nizar Ibrahim Sheikho, co-chair of the municipality of Sheran east of Kobani, said that they previously had one old firetruck, but this year they have another, noting that “two firetrucks are not enough for the wide area of land in the villages of Sheran.”
Sheikho added that their new measures are limited to equipping water sources to fill tanks and fire engines, “as the presence of only one source in the eastern countryside last year caused fire engines and tanks to have to queue to get water.”
In the 33 villages in Sheran municipality, four new water sources were established in the villages of Alisher, Tal Hajeb, Tashluk and Khanik, in addition to the previous source located in the town of Sheran, according to Sheikho.
The Kobani region contains 11 municipalities. One of these is the city itself, two are in the western countryside (Bindir and al-Qenaya), three near Sirin in the southern countryside (Sirin, al-Qadriya, and al-Rimal), five in the eastern and southeastern countrysides (Jalabiya, Balak, Tal Ghazal, Tashluk, and Sheran).
Haji Ahmad, co-chair of the Municipal Committee in the Kobani region, said that they submitted a request for firetrucks to the General Municipal Authority in North and East Syria, but they have not yet received a response.
He explained that the number of regular firetrucks in all of Kobani’s municipalities is only four, while the rest are water tankers which have been equipped with pumps to be used as firetrucks.
Ahmad added that the Municipal Committee is working “to secure powder fire extinguishers for cars, in addition to safety jackets and radios for firefighters.”
The total agricultural areas burned in Kobani region during the last agricultural season was 2,816 acres, including 544 acres of wheat fields and 2,272 acres of barley. 17,989 trees, mostly olive and pistachio trees, were also burned, according to a statement from the region’s Economic Commission.