The official report on the causes of fires that broke out in dozens of homes in the Municipality of Al-Asabaa town is expected to be announced in the coming days, following field inspections of the affected sites, according to a post on the municipality’s Facebook page.
On Wednesday, the Mayor of Al-Asabaa town, Emad Al-Maqtouf, held a meeting at the headquarters of the National Center for Crisis and Emergency Management. The meeting included a research team from the Crisis Committee, a number of experts and researchers from the center, and a team of experts from the European Union.
The municipality said the meeting reviewed the stages of fieldwork conducted by the center and the visiting team, as well as the procedures taken to determine the causes of the recent fires in the city. The presentation also included geographic maps of the fire sites and data collected by the municipality’s research team.
According to the municipality, representatives from the National Center and the EU team explained that they used the latest devices and technologies to identify the causes, noting that initial readings rule out the presence of toxic gases or dangerous chemical or biological substances. They stated that an official report with the test results will be submitted to the municipality in the coming days.
During the meeting, the mayor highlighted the limited capabilities of local emergency teams, particularly the National Safety Authority, which has been working to extinguish the fires under conditions lacking adequate safety equipment. He stressed the importance of using this experience to establish rapid response centers to better protect residents in the future.
Since the onset of the crisis, the municipality—working with the National Center for Crisis Management—formed a scientific team that coordinated with several specialized agencies. These included the General Directorate for Environmental Sanitation Affairs, the Oil Research Center, the National Oil Corporation, the National Safety Authority, and other research teams that visited the city recently.
Over two days, a field team of European experts from Malta, Finland, and Estonia inspected the fire sites to investigate the causes behind the recent fires that affected dozens of homes across the municipality.
