Fri, Feb 10 2012

French aircraft fighting the fire in Rila national park

Mon, Sep 08 2008 11:25 CET

byElitsa Grancharova

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France sent two Canadair aircraft to help Bulgaria's Ministry of Emergency Situations (MES) fight the fire in Rila national park, which has been burning for the past five days. The aircraft will use water from the Iskur dam.

The cause of the fire is as yet unknown, but MES believes it to have been caused by a lightning strike. According to Bulgarian environmentalists, the fire is intentional, as it started and is burning in the area of Kartalska Polyana, where local businessman Hristo Kovachki plans to build a controversial winter resort at 1800m above sea level. The environmentalists oppose the plans, saying that it would destroy valuable forests and that it was against the law to build big tourism facilities in a national park.

The fire now covers about 140ha, 60 per cent of which are forests, MES said. About 220 people took part in fighting the fire on September 7, including fire-fighters, three MES teams from Sofia, Plovdiv and Blagoevgrad, policemen, Rila national park employees and volunteers.

The two Canadair aircraft are built for fighting forest fires, MES said. The airplanes, which have already arrived in Bulgaria, are the CL-415 model with water reservoir capacity of six tons each.

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