War and heat threaten Lebanon with a summer of wildfires

Abnormally high temperatures, drought and incendiary weapons are fuelling the spread of dangerous fires in southern Lebanon

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“The most important thing is to preserve the olive trees,” fireman Anis Abla, who heads the Civil Defence centre in southern Lebanon's Marjayoun, says with exhaustion in his voice. After half an hour of battling the blaze, his team managed to control the flames before they reached a field of Mediterranean plants further up the hill.

But repeated fires have scorched the rest of the land, and past blazes have burnt dozens of olive trees, leaving their blackened skeletons standing on the torched soil.

This is not an uncommon scene in south Lebanon, which has been battling a surge of fires ignited by Israeli shelling, including the use of controversial white phosphorus, exacerbated by abnormally high temperatures, drought and heatwaves.

Over nearly nine months, firefighters in south Lebanon have been exposing their lives to great danger since October 8th, the day Hamas's Lebanese ally Hezbollah opened a “pressure” front along the border with Israel to divert it away from its war in Gaza.

Tensions have risen in recent weeks both on the ground and in terms of rhetoric exchange, sparking fears of a full-fledged conflict. On Thursday, Hezbollah launched more than 200 rockets and a swarm of drones at 10 Israeli military sites, one of its biggest salvos so far, in response to the assassination of a senior commander by an Israeli strike.

With the violence increasing, firefighters are now bracing for a challenging summer of fires.

“The bombing and the heat together are like fuel for the fires,” Mr Abla says, back in the centre in Marjayoun, a few kilometres away from the Israel-Lebanon border, which has been the scene of daily exchange of fire between Hezbollah and Israel.

During the three days spent at the barracks, The National heard multiple Israeli strikes and shelling attacking the nearby town of Khiam and several sonic booms from Israeli jets breaking the sound barrier.

Once ignited, these fires are also difficult to control, and spread easily, Mr Abla said, because rescue teams have a hard time reaching the location due to constant Israeli shelling.

Mr Abla says that the fire they fought that day was not caused by shelling; it was relatively small compared to what they have seen since the fire season began. In June alone, they responded to 21 missions, a significant increase from around four missions for the whole month of June last year.

A “recipe for catastrophic fires”

“It's a disastrous recipe for catastrophic fires,” George Mitri, director of the Land and Natural Resources Program, Institute of the Environment, University of Balamand, told The National.

“This year, temperatures are already abnormally high,” he added. In June, they were three degrees above the monthly average, Mr Mitri added, warning that forecasts for July and August predict similarly alarming trends.

South Lebanon is already one of the “hot spot areas”, he added, a region considered at very high risk of fires, with land covered in dense and highly flammable vegetation.

This, combined with Israel's constant use of white phosphorus, an incendiary chemical that can reignite when in contact with oxygen, even weeks after it has been used, and the reported use of at least one trebuchet to launch flaming projectiles into south Lebanon, has sparked widespread blazes in the region, destroying large areas of farmland and forests.

Right groups have condemned Israel for repeatedly using the shell in south Lebanon, calling for an investigation into potential war crimes.

Since the war started, white phosphorus shells and incendiary weapons have sparked about 812 fires, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Agriculture.

According to the latest update from the National Early Warning System Platform, managed by the National Council for Scientific Research and based on satellite images, about 1,698 hectares of land have been burnt by Israeli attacks as of June 13.

But, the worse might be yet to come. “We expect a continuous increase, burnt agriculture area and lands,” Mr Mitri said.

Yet the cash-strapped country, battling with an economic crisis now in its fifth year, has scarce resources to tackle the danger and is unable to provide firefighters with the adequate equipment.

“The civil defence lacks basic resources, even in normal times, and even more so now with the situation being much more challenging this year,” Mr Mitri said.

Mr Abla told The National that their main lorry is almost 30 years old, and belongs either to “a museum or the bin”. His team, he said, uses COVID masks against toxic white phosphorus fumes.

Making the land 'unlivable'

The fires have torched parts of the particularly rich biosphere in the southern part of the country. But they have also deeply impacted the social and economic fabric.

Mohammad Hussein, head of South Lebanon's Agricultural Union, slammed what he said is a deliberate strategy by Israel to make the land there uninhabitable.

“Most villages rely on their plantations for resources. Burning their land destroys their livelihoods and prevents them from returning to their villages for a years to come.”

According to the Ministry of Agriculture, Israeli shelling has destroyed more than 60,000 olive trees.

Mr Hussein says the damages will take a long time to recover.

“The Israeli army is burning trees, some of which are 200 years old. It's going to take at least a decade to grow back. Can the farmers who rely on these plantations wait that long?” he asked.

Other crops, he said, would recover quicker, such as tobacco and fruits. When it comes to torched land, the issue lies in the financing of a restoration programme. “The municipalities can't finance it, who else will?” he said.

“Lebanon needs to address social recovery and economic recovery for the day after,” Mr Mitri said.

“The destruction goes far beyond the land itself”.