Namibia sends in army to fight devastating wildfire in Etosha game reserve

By Jack Guy, CNN

(CNN) — Namibia has deployed hundreds of soldiers as part of efforts to contain wildfires that have burned through around a third of the territory of one of the largest game reserves in Africa.

The fires started on September 22 in the southwestern part of the Etosha National Park (ENP), according to a statement from the ministry of environment, forestry and tourism, published Saturday.

At that point, according to the ministry, an estimated 775,163 hectares (1.9 million acres) of the park had been burned, equivalent to 34% of its total area, with another 171,098 hectares (423,000 acres) of land outside the park also affected.

“The ecological damage inside ENP is extensive,” the ministry said in the statement, adding that the fires started “due to suspected charcoal production activities on bordering commercial farms.”

In a separate statement published Sunday on Facebook, the office of acting Namibian President Lucia Witbooi said 540 soldiers have been deployed to help fight the fires, along with helicopters.

“The fire poses a significant threat to the biodiversity, wildlife and livelihood of the communities in the affected areas,” it said, adding that an unknown number of animals have been killed but there have been no reported human casualties.

“Strong winds and dry vegetation contribute to the fire spreading rapidly,” read the statement, which added that authorities “continue to mobilise resources to reinforce ongoing efforts to enable the teams on the ground to extinguish the fire.”

On Monday morning local time, Namibian Prime Minister Elijah Ngurare Manongo said in a post on X that fires were still burning both inside and outside the park, but all of them had now been contained.

“When there is teamwork there is no challenge we cannot overcome,” said Manongo in a separate post.

The Etosha National Park is a major tourist attraction that draws around 200,000 visitors a year, according to Namibia’s tourism ministry.

It is home to 114 species of mammal, including elephants, lions, giraffes and critically endangered black rhinos, as well as 340 bird species.

The park is also home to a salt pan that covers 4,730 square kilometers (1,826 square miles) – so large that it is visible from space.

According to NASA, fires triggered by lightning strikes used to burn in the park’s savannas and woodlands around once a decade before firefighters started to aggressively extinguish wildfires.

Then, a mounting body of scientific evidence suggested that occasional burning is key to maintaining a healthy ecosystem in the park, leading park officials to implement a system of preventative burning.

This is designed to prevent devastating wildfires like those that occurred in 2011, when dozens of animals died in fires that burned 370,000 hectares (940,000 acres) of the park.

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