Guantánamo.- More than 200 hectares of pine forest have been severely damaged by a medium-sized forest fire in Alto de Ceiba, a mountainous area of Yateras Municipality in Guantánamo Province, near Alejandro de Humboldt National Park. The protected area was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2001.
Ernesto Henry Ferrer, acting deputy head of the Forestry Corps in Guantánamo Province, said the fire was detected on Thursday, August 13. It is now under control, and Interior Ministry forces are working to extinguish it with support from forestry workers and Civil Defense personnel in Yateras.
Crews are constructing mineralized firebreaks to remove combustible material and halt the fire’s spread. The blaze remains active in the Caguairanal area, near the Toa River—the largest river in Cuba—and must be extinguished without endangering the communities located in the mountain range.
The Forestry Corps has launched an investigation to determine the causes of this fire and two other smaller ones, reported in the municipalities of San Antonio del Sur and Baracoa.
