• Submitted by: Juana
• Local
• 04 / 17 / 2017

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An unexpected heavy rain helped extinguishing one of the largest fires registered in the last years in eastern Cuba that destroyed close to 5,000 hectare of woodlands.
The fire started on April 9, in the Holguin municipality of Cueto, and spread through the mountains to the Santiago de Cuba´s Mella municipality, destroying everything on its path.
The corps of rangers in the area, aided by workers of several cooperatives and agriculture companies, worked for days using bulldozers to build trails and water trucks to suffocate the flames.
The Ministry of Agriculture also sent planes to drop water over the burning areas, according to a report on the Cuban television.
The work was harder due to the huge amounts of flammable materials in the mountains, which included pine trees knocked down by hurricanes that hit the area in the last years.
In 2015, there were 507 forestry fires in Cuba, that destroyed close to 6,000 hectare and caused damages for over 34 million Cuban pesos.