20160322 Philippines Thousands of trees lost in North Cotabato grass fires
Philippines Mar 22 2016 “Forest”
Dead : dead 0 or unknown Burnout : 0 or unknown Injured : injured 0 or unknown
Thousands of trees lost in North Cotabato grass fires
Updated: 2016-03-22-15:23
A drought that has been affecting the area since late December has made parts of North Cotabato prone to grass fires.
More than a thousand rubber and forest trees have been destroyed by grass fires that spread and hit parts of North Cotabato the past six days, officials said Tuesday.
The latest of these conflagrations ravaged hundreds of rubber trees in Barangay Pulang Lupa in M’lang town in North Cotabato.
Barangay officials said the fire was possibly caused by a cigarette that was discarded while still lit. A drought that has affected the area since late December has made fields there more prone to fires.
The incident was preceded by a fire that also hit a rubber farm and destroyed dozens of trees in the southeast part of the same town.
A three-hour fire of still undetermined origin also hit a reforestation area in Barangay Amas in North Cotabato’s provincial capital, Kidapawan City.
Jonathan Arquilla, a senior employee of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources in Kidapawan City, was reported by North Cotabato’s leading broadcast outfit, the Catholic station dxND, as saying that a large number of lawaan and molave trees were on fire.
Station dxND had also reported that municipal fire stations in North Cotabato had put out more than 20 grass fires in Kidapawan City and in the neighboring towns of Matalam, Magpet and Makilala in recent weeks.
North Cotabato Gov. Emmylou Taliño-Mendoza on Tuesday said she has directed local executives to help educate the public on how to prevent grass fires amid the now three-month dry spell in many parts of the province and nearby areas in Administrative Regions 10, 11 and 12 and in towns inside the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.
The Central Mindanao office of the Department of Agriculture had earlier initiated cloud-seeding operations, which produced scattered light rains in parts of North Cotabato and the nearby provinces of Sultan Kudarat and South Cotabato.
Web Source: Philstar
http://www.philstar.com/nation/2016/03/22/1565564/thousands-trees-lost-north-cotabato-grass-fires