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The commune of Ouzellaguen was severely affected by the forest fires that broke out this Sunday afternoon and were active for a good part of the night, even until Monday dawn. Power grids were destroyed by the flames, depriving hundreds of homes of electricity, particularly those in the villages of Ighvane, Sidi Younès, Fournane El-Djemaâ, Ihaddaden. Thus, 400 m of low-voltage lines and 6 medium-voltage conductors fell to the ground.
Three wooden pylons and nine spans were also damaged by the fires, which were fanned by the winds blowing over the region. Electrical substations were also affected. The situation began to return to normal yesterday morning, after the restoration of electricity to part of the population affected by the outages. AEP equipment and networks were also destroyed by the fires, depriving dozens of homes of drinking water.
The flames swept through a large area of vegetation (several dozen hectares) in this verdant region and surrounded at least 10 villages in the municipality, namely Bouaissi, Didoune, Habane, Izemourène, Tigrine, Azrou, Alloune (Chréa), Sidi-Younès, Aghbane and Bourenane, which were badly affected. More than 50 hectares of vegetation, including olive trees, holm oaks, oleasters and other trees were devoured in just a few hours. A house under construction and a chicken coop were completely destroyed. Another house and another chicken coop were slightly affected, in addition to about twenty beehives.
The assessment is provisional because the area destroyed by the fires seems larger and material damage was caused. However, the worst was avoided since no human loss was reported. Minor discomfort was noted in some people, due to the inhalation of the smoke that invaded the entire Soummam. Several families were evacuated from their homes. Some initially refused to leave their homes, however, they eventually came to terms with the extent of the flames that were gradually but quickly approaching their homes and because of the smoke that poisoned the air, making it unbreathable.
In addition to the human and material resources that were mobilized by civil protection, forestry agents and citizens, who participated en masse in extinguishing the fires, air resources were mobilized, in this case 4 bomber planes including a BE200 belonging to the National People’s Army (ANP). The extinguishing operations lasted part of the night and resulted in the extinction of the three fires that were active and then the two largest recorded in the region, according to the Civil Protection of the wilaya of Béjaïa, which communicated every hour on the situation to reassure the populations.
Yesterday morning, firefighters and forestry officers, in addition to aerial resources, were still mobilized in the region to monitor the scene and prevent any resumption of fires. The Wali of Béjaïa, Kamel-Eddine Karbouche, went to the scene in the early hours with the Director of Civil Protection, the interim head of the Ouzellaguen district and the security services to supervise the operations to extinguish the fires. It should be noted that the Sonelgaz teams of the wilaya of Béjaïa were still on the scene yesterday morning to restore power to the villages of Founane, El-Djemaâ, Ifri, Ighvane, Ihaddaden, Ighil-Oudles, among others. The natural gas supply was restored during the night.