Field fire fighting teams succeeded on Sunday in controlling the fire that broke out in the Bab Azhar forest in the municipality of Smia, local sources told Taza province.
The mobilization of all stakeholders continues to sweep the area of the fire in order to avoid a new outbreak of fires due to the winds.
It is also a question of rescuing the inhabitants of the douars concerned, add the same sources, specifying that 500 inhabitants were evacuated in order to preserve their safety.
One person has died in the violent fires that have ravaged remote forested regions of northern Morocco since Wednesday, causing the evacuation of hundreds of families and destroying thousands of hectares of forest. The victim, found in one of the fires in the Larache region, was “suffering from multiple burns”, according to a press release published Friday, July 15 by the authorities.
At least 2,000 hectares of forest – especially oaks, pines and other conifers – have already been destroyed in the provinces of Larache, Ouezzane, Tetouan, Taza and Chefchaouen, the last affected, all located in the north of the country, according to a provisional balance sheet dated Friday evening.
The rapid progression of the flames, fanned by gusts of wind up to 45 km / h, forced more than a thousand families to evacuate seventeen villages near Larache. In the Tetouan region, around sixty houses burned down and around a hundred animals perished. In Taza, 420 villagers had to leave their homes.