Lebanon has asked for international help battling hundreds of forest fires that broke out on Monday and have spread abroad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The blazes – the worst in decades – started in Lebanon’s western mountains, amid a heatwave and strong winds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Heavy smoke was seen over Beirut and the city of Sidon, and one volunteer firefighter reportedly died.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Two forestry workers have also died in the north-western region of Latakia, according to Syrian state media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eight more were injured in the flames, Sana news agency said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lebanon’s Interior Minister Raya El Hassan said the government had contacted several countries for help, and tweeted images of a Cypriot plane dropping water<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Riot police equipped with water cannon were called to the Mount Lebanon region early on Tuesday after fire engines were overwhelmed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is unclear how the fires began. But Prime Minister Saad Hariri is reported to have said that if they were set intentionally, those responsible “will pay a price”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The volunteer firefighter is said to have died in the Chouf region, south-east of Beirut. The area is the site of the Al Shouf Cedar Nature Reserve, which has a large Lebanon cedar forest – the tree on the country’s national flag.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lebanon’s civil defence authority has tweeted regular updates<\/a> about the fight against the fires. Army and air force units are helping throughout the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Lebanon has asked for international help battling hundreds of forest fires that broke out on Monday and have spread abroad. The blazes – the worst in decades – started in Lebanon’s western mountains, amid a heatwave and strong winds. Heavy smoke was seen over Beirut and the city of Sidon, and one volunteer firefighter reportedly died. Two forestry workers have… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":147,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[250,125],"class_list":["post-3810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-forest-fires","tag-lebanon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/147"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3810"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3810\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3811,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3810\/revisions\/3811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}