Pakistan battles wildfires amid heatwave | WKZO | All Kalamazoo

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Pakistani authorities battled wildfires in several areas including the capital Islamabad on Friday as the country grappled with heatwaves and dry weather.

Authorities have not yet confirmed whether the fires are linked to high temperatures or arson.

Parts of Pakistan have seen temperatures of up to 52.2 degrees centigrade (126 F) over the past week, with South Asia sweltering in a hotter summer this year – a trend that scientists say , has been made worse by human-caused climate change.

Plumes of smoke could be seen rising from a raging fire in the hills of Islamabad with temperatures reaching 41 degrees centigrade on Friday afternoon.

“It’s difficult to get firefighters there; emergency services are trying to put out the fire,” Islamabad police official Sohail Khan told Reuters, adding that it was not certain whether the fires were heat-related or arson-related.

An Islamabad police spokesperson said they were investigating the reasons for the fire and a special team had been formed to investigate by the city's police chief.

Waqar Zakaria, a member of the Islamabad Wildlife Board, said the fire could be a case of “arson”, adding that the high temperatures persisted longer than usual and that May has been drier than normal, causing fires to spread more quickly due to dry vegetation. .

An area of ​​Punjab close to Islamabad, Kallar Kahar, also saw a fire engulf 25 acres of grassland, the provincial disaster management department (PDMA) said, adding that the flames, which spread quickly, had been controlled.

“The Kalar Kahar forest fire could be a heat-related flare,” PDMA spokesperson Mazhar Hussain told Reuters.

Forest fires were also seen in Lower Dir, 250 km northwest of Islamabad, local resident Mohammad Jalil told Reuters by telephone, adding that the flames had started to engulf hundreds of trees four days ago and were not yet under control.

Pakistan is considered by global organizations to be one of the countries most vulnerable to extreme weather and climate change. In 2022, floods ravaged the country, killing more than 1,700 people and displacing millions.

In India, at least 15 people died from suspected heatstroke on Thursday, with the region in the grip of a debilitating heatwave expected to continue until Saturday.

(Reporting by Gibran Peshimam and Asif Shahzad in Islamabad, Mubasher Bukhari in Lahore and Mushtaq Ali in Peshawar; Additional reporting by Sheree Sardar in Islamabad; editing by Giles Elgood)