Fires have become a daily occurrence across northern Iraq in recent weeks, many of them sparked by accident, others as part of land disputes or by suspected insurgents.
Friday’s fires erupted in several different locations – seven in villages south of Mosul, one in northern Mosul city, one in Bashik, and one near a fuel and electricity station in the neighborhood of Zahra, according to Al-Mawseleya TV.
Mosul’s civil defense teams were dispatched to tackle the fires, according to the General Department of Civil Defense.
“Since yesterday night and in the early morning, civil defense personnel have been engaged in an ongoing conflict, fighting the fires that almost reached the Mashraq plant in Mosul,” it said in a statement.
In the village of Talayara in Bashik, civil defense workers treated children for smoke inhalation.
Iraq had a very wet growing season this year. This led to high yield harvests of wheat and barley, but also a plentiful tinderbox of grass, brush, and undergrowth dried by the summer sun.
Many of the fires have occurred in the disputed areas between the Kurdistan Region and Iraq, where insurgent groups have exploited security gaps in these territories to launch attacks and extort money from locals.
Salam al-Shamari, head of the Agriculture Committee of the Iraqi Parliament, said most of the fires were started deliberately, especially those in Kirkuk, Nineveh, Diyala, and Saladin.
“Some 8,500 dunams of land have burned in Kirkuk province,” Zuhail Ali, who heads the province’s agricultural directorate, told Rudaw English.
“Some [fires were started by] unidentified perpetrators while others [are] due to electricity [faults].”
Only those farmers who have “registered” their land with the directorate will be compensated by the federal government, Ali added.
Summer temperatures in Iraq have already risen beyond 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit), leaving the region with a short and very dry harvest season.
Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi has urged caution, insisting not all fires are the result of arson or caused by Islamic State (ISIS) remnants. The fires are an annual occurrence, he said.
On Thursday, the Iraqi parliament directed lawmakers to visit fire-hit areas to assess compensation claims.
