The local authorities of the Larache province said, “Two cases of suffocation have been recorded, of two women who did not want to respond to the calls of the local authorities (…) to evacuate the houses threatened by fire.”
She later clarified that the rescue teams evacuated 712 families from 13 villages “away from the places of danger”, noting that “4 active hot spots of fire that firefighting crews are striving to put out” until Tuesday evening.
The fall of these two victims comes a day after the death of a volunteer in other forest fire-extinguishing teams in the Taounate region (north).
On Tuesday night, rescue teams continued their efforts to control them in four hotspots, fueled by strong winds.
In the meantime, “the threat to the residents of a nearby village has been neutralized,” according to the local authorities.
Earlier, a person died as a result of fires in the forests near Larache in mid-July.
Since Monday, rescue teams, backed by firefighting planes and volunteers, have continued their efforts to control fires that broke out in several forests in the northwest of the country, which destroyed nearly 100 hectares of vegetation.
The area of forest affected by the fires that broke out between July 13 and 18 exceeded 10,500 hectares.
Morocco intends to launch a program to reforest about 9 thousand hectares of forests that were destroyed by recent fires in the north of the kingdom, according to what the government announced on Friday, in a plan that also includes supporting farmers and rebuilding damaged homes.
The program has allocated a budget of approximately 290 million dirhams (about 28 million dollars).
In recent years, Morocco has witnessed the outbreak of forest fires during the summer due to the high temperatures.
For a few weeks, the Kingdom has been exposed to a severe heat wave that exacerbated the dry season and water stress, due to weather fluctuations.
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