HIBAPRESS – Mohamed Manfalouti
"I'm in the middle of the fire, brother… I'll call you when I'm done" is the content of a phone call that took place a short while ago between "HIBAPRESS" and a member of the civil protection in Settat, summarizing the size of the risks. He is in the heart of the blazing fires in the Chawiya fields, rushing and struggling with his colleagues to extinguish them.
A heroic intervention almost daily, and wherever one goes, they hear news of the outbreak of fires, whether in the north, south, east, or west, or in fields extending along the Settat-Casablanca highway…
The flames rise and consume agricultural crops, and what increases the size of the risks, God forbid, is their proximity to gas stations…
In the end, it is the Chawiya granary that is living its worst days with the successive fires, the severity of which has been increased by the high temperatures, the difficulty of the paths, and the widening of its area and distribution, which has complicated the tasks of the civil protection men…
In the end, save the Chawiya fields, save the granary of Morocco and its vibrant agricultural heart…
Hundreds of hectares have become ashes, and fires are approaching residential areas, and efforts are being made, but the question remains: what is the opinion of the ministry in charge of the sector in this regard?
Today, there is no talk among farmers except about the size of agricultural losses and the horror of the fires that are active on a daily basis, and about the rising level of panic and fear in the souls of the afflicted population who have become surrounded by smoke and fires, in which primitive methods have been used to extinguish them and contain them so that they do not affect humans and stones, using tractors and some traditional water tanks, before the civil protection elements move.
A dangerous reality… and other vast areas threatened by fires, which requires urgent intervention by the concerned authorities to stop this bleeding, and to work on strengthening the firefighting services that suffer from a logistical shortage compared to the size of the fires.
