A wildfire that began scorching the forests of Marivan in Kurdestan Province on Saturday has taken the lives of four environmentalists during their attempts to put out the blaze with bare hands and with no proper safety measures.
The fire, whose cause is still unknown, had been contained by late Sunday but the extinguishing forces remained in the area due to the high risks of reignition.
The Forests, Range and Watershed Management Organization was the key body responsible for the operations but the Department of Environment and NGOs as well as local people also cooperated in the efforts, Zist Online reported.
Two of the four victims were among the personnel of Marivan's FRWMO office and the other two were members of a green NGO who had volunteered to help put out the fire.
Local authorities claim that they died due to deep burns while officials from Iran's Red Crescent Society attribute their death to the explosion of a landmine that had remained in the area from the Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988).
Director of the provincial office of FRWMO Saadi Naqshbandi dismissed claims of a mine blast saying that the casualties had been trapped inside the flames that kept changing directions by wind.
"Despite their years of experience in fire extinguishing, the several-meter high flames devoured them," he told ISNA.
Ill-Organized, Ill-Equipped
Jamshid Mohabbatkhani, head of the DOE's protection unit, criticized the efforts for lack of precautionary measures.
"Arial monitoring should have been carried out before the operations so as to determine the locations where the staff could safely work and prevent their being trapped inside the flames," he was quoted as saying by Zist Online.
Erfan Hosseini, one of the founders of Kurdestan's Sabz Chia Association, said as soon as the fire was reported, a team of six people from the NGO was dispatched to the zone, however, with the least possible equipment.
"All we have are rakes and spades and the FRWMO, as the public sector, has no adequate equipment to control such crises either," he regretted.
Hosseini complained that better services are expected of government bodies.
"It is not the NGO's responsibility to put out wildfires, but we do it out of our moral sense of duty," he said.
He added that fires, 98% of which caused by humans, have become common events in Zagros Forests and the woodlands would have been totally cleared if environmental associations had not endeavored to control them.
Sharif Bajour and Omid Hosseinzadeh form Sabz Chia Association and Rahmat Hakiminia and Mohammad Pajouhi, contracted forces of FRWMO, were killed in the incident.
