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Firefighters on the ground are trying to contain the fires
The distribution management of Sonelgaz in the wilaya of Béjaïa has drawn up the first assessment of the damages following the latest forest fires. Significant damages were recorded at the level of the electricity and city gas networks in at least seven municipalities of the wilaya, more particularly in Ouzellaguen, and this during the day of the 21st and the night of the 22nd of the current month.
“These fires resulted in the loss of 450 linear meters of low-voltage networks, approximately 500 linear meters of medium-voltage networks, the destruction of 5 wooden electrical supports and around ten electric meters,” said the management of Sonelgaz-Distribution of the wilaya of Béjaïa in a press release, without specifying the value of this damage, which could amount to several hundred million centimes. “Once the fires were brought under control, our intervention teams established the first assessment of the damage caused by said fires, which did not spare our networks, particularly the electrical networks,” it added.
More than 1,500 customers were affected by the power and gas outages during the disasters, which particularly affected many villages in the commune of Ouzellaguen, including Ighbane, Djemaâ, Chahid Fournane, Ifri, Sidi Younès and Didone. “The forest fires caused a preventive cut in electricity and natural gas to around 1,500 customers (1,400 electricity customers and 100 gas customers), in order to avert the danger and allow operational teams to carry out fire extinguishing operations safely,” the same source said.
“After recording a fire alert, our teams immediately moved to the scene to isolate the fires and allow the Civil Protection and Forestry services to intervene safely,” the same source stressed. It stated that these teams “restored the natural gas supply the same day, around 8:45 p.m., to all customers affected by the preventive cut, after checking all of our customers’ gas connections.” The management of Sonelgaz-Distribution in the wilaya of Béjaïa noted that “the company’s intervention teams were reinforced by teams affiliated with subcontracting companies equipped with all the necessary resources.”
The teams in place worked hard to restore the power supply that same evening, until late hours, to more than 90% of customers and the restoration of electricity, and to the rest the following morning, and this in extremely difficult conditions. As a reminder, 11 forest fires were recorded in the afternoon of July 21 in seven municipalities of the wilaya of Béjaïa, namely (Sidi-Younès, Fournahne, Ifri, El-Djemaâ, Ighvane…) Ouzellaguene, (Thadargounte) Darguina, (Thgimdouchines) Aït R’zine, (Ferdjoune) Souk El-Tennine, (Azrou N’bachar and Bouhène) Amizour, (Ighil-Outouaf) Timezrit and (Aguemoune) Béni Maâouche.
Sonelgaz recalled in its press release that “71 billion centimes were invested this year in order to improve the quality and continuity of service and meet customer demand, which is constantly evolving.” It added that “the company has commissioned 33 transformer stations, 99 km of low-voltage networks, 13 km of medium-voltage networks and 5 new medium-voltage departures.” Not forgetting, among other things, the rehabilitation of obsolete networks, the maintenance of stations and lines as well as the opening of firebreak trenches.