ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Fierce wildfires that ripped through parts of Sulaimani province over the course of four days were brought under control in the early hours of Wednesday, a local official has announced. Wednesday's firefight was the third time fires in the north of the province, close to the Iranian border, had to be brought under control since Sunday. "The fire initially broke out on Sunday and it was controlled. That night, it broke out again and was controlled. But yesterday's blaze was huge, and difficult to control," Gapilon sub-district mayor Kamaran Abdulla said. "With the help of firefighting teams from Mawat and Sharbazher districts, and Sulaimani municipality, we managed to put out the blaze." The fire is suspected by locals to have been ignited by a lightning strike on Sunday. Efforts to extinguish the fire were made more difficult by the "inaccessible" and "rugged" site of the fire. "The area was also littered with landmines that could have detonated in the fire," he added, which stopped authorities from sending civil defense teams to combat the blaze. A countless number of unexploded landmines are scattered across the Kurdish border areas of Iran and Iraq, the legacy of a devastating war between the two countries in the 1980s. Dozens of people on both sides of the border are maimed or killed every year by stepping on landmines. The fire has "burned 1,000 dunams [250 acres] of forests, bushes, and wild brush" since Sunday, in the vicinity of four Gapilon sub-district villages - Wilakhlu, Balikh, Kuna Masi and Dolbeshk, according to Abdulla. "The pastures of the four villages have been burned," he added. Fires are common in the Kurdistan Region's summers, when temperatures can reach 50 degrees.
