Tunisia-35 fires registered since start of 2020 on 55.5 hectares

In a statement to the TAP, the official said that 4% of these fires are due to natural factors, due to rising temperatures and 3% caused voluntarily and criminally. 96% of these fires are due to irresponsible human practices, he explained.

The main fires were recorded in Kalaat Senan and Kef governorate (18 hectares) and El Haouaria (10 hectares).

The fires declared in farms are 7, which ravaged 20 hectares, including 10 hectares of wheat.

This year, the number of fires has increased and they also affected markets and factories, citing in this regard the fire of a phosphate transport locomotive in Gafsa on May 14, 2020, and another in the industrial zone of Enfidha, in a factory specialising in manufacturing paper towels, as well as a fire that broke out in the second-hand shops of La Hafsia (in Tunis) and another fire in one of the buildings in the capital.

Thus, faced with this situation and to prevent fires and protect forest resources and crops, the Ministry of Agriculture recalled in a statement, a set of sanctions related to forest fires.

It is stated in a communiqué that any offender is liable to a penalty, either a fine or imprisonment. The ministry specified that anyone who brings or sets fires outside residential areas, and logging constructions inside forests or land covered with forest plants within 200 metres of them, as well as anyone who sets fires, and fires plants of any type from May 1 to October 31, at a distance of 500 metres from all forests or land covered with forest plants, is punished.

The penalty is a fine of between 50 and 150 dinars and imprisonment for between 16 days and 3 months, or one of the two penalties only.

If the fire infiltrates the forests, the perpetrator shall be imprisoned for a period between three months and two years, notwithstanding the fines.

The Ministry of Agriculture has also warned that anyone who intentionally sets fire in forests will be imprisoned for 12 years, under article 307 of the Penal Code.

The offender is liable to 20 years’ imprisonment if the burned premises are uninhabited or not intended for habitation. He may even be sentenced to execution if the fire results in the death of a person.