Tehran - BORNA - Local officials in the north-central province of Semnan said on Wednesday that the wildfire in the Clouds Forest of the Shahrud region was brought under control just hours after it started.
Shahrud’s governor, Mohammad Hassan Asafari, said Iranian army units had assisted in the firefighting operation.
“The forest has not suffered serious damage, and most of the losses are in the rangelands,” he said.
The director of the local Natural Resources and Watershed Management department in Semnan province had earlier said the fire was most likely caused by human activity.
Alireza Rahayi said that the blaze had affected 10 hectares of woodland near the border of Semnan and the northern province of Golestan.
The incident comes just days after Iran announced it had fully contained a large-scale fire in the Hyrcanian forests near the northern city of Chalus in Mazandaran province. That blaze in the Elit forests destroyed more than eight hectares of woodland before it was extinguished, according to government officials.
Iran’s Environment Protection Organization said it had also deployed a firefighting squadron from neighboring Turkey to help put out the Elit blaze.
Authorities have attributed the sudden outbreaks of fires in the Hyrcanian forests to diminished rainfall and the buildup of dry leaves on the forest floor.
Stretching for around 1,000 kilometers along Iran’s Caspian Sea coast and extending into neighboring Azerbaijan, the Hyrcanian forests were recognized as a World Heritage Site in 2019 for their antiquity and exceptional biodiversity.
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