ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Over 1,200 different fire incidents have been recorded in Iraq since the start of 2024, a decrease compared to the previous year, a spokesperson for Iraqi civil defense said on Tuesday. “Up until the middle of this month, 1,244 fires have occurred in all provinces of Iraq, excluding the Kurdistan Region. The number has decreased compared to last year,” Iraqi civil defense spokesperson Nawas Sabah Shakir told Rudaw. Shakir noted that over 100 fire cases occurred in crops across the country. "Nineveh province had the highest number of crop fires with 20, followed by Kirkuk and Salahaddin with 15 crop fires, and 11 cases in Babil,” Shakir said. Fires are a recurrent issue in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region, particularly during the summer, with causes ranging from extreme weather conditions to incidents involving tourists. Six members of a family were killed in April when a fire erupted in a two-story house in Iraq’s southern city of Basra Shakir said that since the start of the year, 927 individuals and projects were referred to an investigations committee for violating safety standards. In September 2023, over 100 individuals lost their lives during a wedding in Nineveh province's Handmaniya, when a bouquet hall ignited. More than 20,000 fires were recorded in Iraq in 2023, a significant number but still a decrease from 32,000 in 2022, according to data from Iraq’s civil defense.
