File photo taken on Oct. 12, 2020 shows firefighters battling to contain a fire on Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Oct. 12, 2020. (Str/Xinhua)
A fire that broke out Friday night on Tanzania's Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest mountain, has been extinguished, a senior official said Monday.
DAR ES SALAAM, Oct. 25 (Xinhua) -- A fire that broke out Friday night on Tanzania's Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest mountain, has been extinguished, a senior official said Monday.
Eliamani Sedoyeka, the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, said the fire was put out Sunday at around 5 p.m., local time, by a team of more than 600 firefighters from various institutions.
"The firefighters are still monitoring in case there are some pockets of fire that could go up in flames," Sedoyeka told Xinhua in an interview over the phone.
Asked to what extent the fire has caused damage, Sedoyeka said initial assessment has shown that about four square kilometers of vegetation of the mountain's 1,712 square kilometers of vegetation have been destroyed.
He said the putting out of the fire will be followed by investigations to establish the cause of the fire that broke out at about 3,900 meters altitude on the south side of the mountain but he could not rule out human error.
On Sunday, the Kilimanjaro regional commissioner Nurdin Babu said more than 600 firefighters were mobilized to put out the fire on the mountain. Babu told Xinhua in an interview over the phone that the firefighters were drawn from the Tanzania Fire and Rescue Force, the Tanzania National Parks, police, scouts, members of the militia, and the private sector.
Photo taken on Feb. 9, 2015 shows the Arrow Glacier seen from the site of Uhuru Peak, the highest point of Mt. Kilimanjaro. (Xinhua/Zhang Chuanshi)
In October 2020, a fire broke out on the mountain and destroyed 95.5 square kilometers of vegetation and 12 huts, two toilets and solar equipment used by tourists climbing the mountain.
Mount Kilimanjaro, with its snow-capped peak and about 5,895 meters above sea level, is one of Tanzania's leading tourist destinations.
Roughly 50,000 trekkers from across the world attempt to reach the summit of the mountain annually. ■
