Park Officials Say Kenya Game Park Fires Extinguished
8/1/98
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Title: Park Officials Say Kenya Game Park Fires Extinguished
Source: Reuters
Status: Copyrighted, contact source to reprint
Date: 8/1/98
ARUBA, Kenya - Bush fires raging through Kenya's Tsavo East national
park for the last two weeks have finally been extinguished, park
officials said on Wednesday.
More than 100 firemen, policemen and park rangers fought to put out
the fires, which covered 30,000 square km (12,000 square miles), or a
quarter of the park, said John Muhanga, assistant director for Tsavo
region in southeast Kenya.
A haze hung over some sections of the park on Wednesday and wildlife
had deserted the scorched scrub.
Muhanga said tourists are mainly concentrated in the neighbouring
Tsavo West park and few had had their holidays spoilt by the fires.
"There were not many tourists visiting that part of the park anyway.
So the impact of the fires has not been great," he said.
The two Tsavo parks support around one third of Kenya's elephant
population, but those in the affected area had migrated to the north
and west, Muhanga said.
"There has not been a significant impact on the wildlife and as far as
we know none were injured in the fires," he said.
Bush fires are common in the savannah grasslands of this part of
Kenya.
Tourism, one of Kenya's main foreign exchange earners, has been
severely damaged since last year by ethnic clashes on the Indian Ocean
and in the Rift Valley.
(C) Reuters Limited 1998.