Nearly a week after the first fire broke out of the wheat silos at the Port of Beirut last Thursday, a series of small fires rekindled every day now as smoke is constantly rising from the silos.
The director general of the port, Omar Itani, blamed the fires on the high temperature and the fermenting wheat in the silos.
Itani explained that “it is unsafe for firefighters to get too close to the silos and it would take a complex operation to extinguish the flames.”
The fire at the port came as firefighters and the Lebanese army on Monday battled a wildfire near Roumieh, then helicopters of the Lebanese army worked to try to put out the fire in the silos of the Port of Beirut but it still rekindled every night.
On Saturday morning, MP Melhem Khalaf tweeted, “Yesterday evening, we went to the burning silos, with some of the families of the August 4 victims, and insisted on communicating with the concerned ministers.”
“The Ministers of Public Works, Environment, and Economy attended, as well as the Governor of Beirut. An agreement was made to put out the fires in cooperation with the Lebanese Army! Hoping for implementation today!”
However, the fire is still ongoing as of the time of writing.
Related: Heritage Experts Want The Beirut Port Silos To Be A Protected Historical Building.
