More than 350 people, including firefighters, forest rangers and volunteers, have been deployed to put out a fire on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest peak in northeastern Tanzania.
The fire, whose origin is still unknown, burns near the Karanga camp, a mountaineer's stopover located about 4,000 meters above sea level on the southern slopes of the "roof of Africa" (5,895 meters).
This fire occurs exactly two years after a fire that had devastated, during a week in October 2020, 95 km2 of runways, without causing fatalities.
The regional authorities indicated in the early afternoon that it did not threaten the tourists present in this mountain, very frequented by lovers of trekking and mountaineering.
The exact extent of the fire, which broke out on Friday night and was fanned by strong winds that blew through the area overnight, remained undetermined at the end of the day on Saturday, according to regional authorities.
A plane carrying local officials and officials from the National Parks Agency (Tanapa) to assess the situation was unable to access the site on Saturday afternoon.
"Heavy clouds and smoke prevented us from reaching the burning area," Kilimanjaro region prefect Nurdin Babu told reporters. "We'll try again when the situation improves a bit," he added.
"We cannot comment on the extent of the fire at this time because the focus is on controlling the fire," regional police chief Yahaya Mdogo said in the early afternoon. "We don't have information about the impact on the population, beyond the fact that scrub (vegetation) is being burned," he added.
Videos circulating on social media showed the flames devouring vegetation, releasing thick plumes of gray smoke.
"Tanapa staff, police, firefighters, Mweka (village) Wildlife University students and employees of the tour operator Zara Tours are working hard to control the fire," his colleague from the Tanapa side said in a brief press release. .
Kilimanjaro, an emblematic mountain whose snow-capped peak is known throughout the world, and the area around it are listed as a national park, listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
With a total area of more than 75,000 hectares (more than 750 km2), the park is home to a remarkable ecosystem, including a fauna made up of elephants, buffalo, antelope...
This volcanic massif made up of three peaks (Kibo, Mawenzi, Shira) is not immune to global warming, which considerably dries out its vegetation, successively made up of plains, mountain forests and highland moors, before an alpine desert and the peak of the mountain.
The "snows of Kilimanjaro" celebrated by Ernest Hemingway could even disappear by 2040, according to a 2011 report by the World Meteorological Organization, the UN weather agency, on Africa's climate situation.
