Morocco has brought a fire that ravaged the country's north for several days fully under control, a forestry official said Wednesday.
Hundreds of people, including firefighters and soldiers supported by four firefighting planes and other aircraft, battled to the extinguish the blaze which broke out in a forest near the tourist town of Chefchaouen.
The last fires "were totally brought under control" on Wednesday afternoon, after "destroying almost 1,100 hectares (over 2,700 acres) of forest", Rachid El-Anzi, regional director of the water and forestry department, told AFP.
Authorities have opened an investigation to determine the cause of the blaze, which did not cause any deaths.
High temperatures and strong winds are thought to have contributed to the fire.
A heatwave in the North African kingdom in recent days has seen record temperatures at times "exceeding the monthly average by five to 12 degrees", the meteorology department said Tuesday.
Another heatwave last month contributed to the outbreak of 20 fires that burned 1,200 hectares of forest in the kingdom, the water and forestry department said.
Morocco is among several Mediterranean countries that have seen forest fires in recent weeks, including neighbouring Algeria, where at least 90 people have been killed in wildfires.
Algeria forest fires extinguished: emergency services
Algiers (AFP) Aug 18, 2021 –
All forest fires in Algeria have been extinguished, the emergency services said Wednesday, ending over a week of deadly blazes that left at least 90 people dead.
"No forest fire was recorded" on Wednesday morning, the emergency services in the North African nation said.
Fires broke out on August 9, and at one point dozens were raging in multiple sites across northern Algeria, burning tens of thousands of hectares of forest.
The government has blamed arsonists and a blistering heatwave for the blazes, and authorities have arrested 22 suspects.
Police have also arrested 61 people over the lynching of a man falsely accused of arson, an incident that sparked outrage. The mob also set the victim on fire.
Authorities have appeared to point the finger for the incident and the blazes at the independence movement of the hard-hit mainly Berber region of Kabylie, which extends along the Mediterranean coast east of the capital Algiers.
The Movement for Self-determination of Kabylie (MAK), which Algiers classifies as a "terrorist organisation", has rejected the accusations.
Algeria is Africa's biggest country by surface area, and although much of the interior is desert, the north has over four million hectares (10 million acres) of forest, which is hit every summer by fires.
Critics say the authorities failed to prepare for the blazes.
Algeria's army mobilised five helicopters and its emergency services three water-bombing helicopters to fight the flames, with firefighting aircraft also coming to help from Europe.
Algeria has since decided to buy four firefighting planes.
Climate scientists have repeatedly warned that man-made global warming will bring higher temperatures and more extreme weather events across the world.
