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According to the Ministry of Agriculture, about 1,200 hectares of forests are burned in the fires annually.
Forest fires in Lebanon are particularly devastating because the woodland is not well adapted to regenerating after being burned, meaning that ancient forests can be destroyed forever. In 2006, forests covered about 13 percent of Lebanese territory, 40 percent less than in 1968.
More than 200 forest fires had destroyed homes and ancient woodland, and threatened a world heritage site in Lebanon in 2007.
Some villas were ablazed, cars were burnt, the phone and electricity lines were burnt as well.
The fires were estimated to have destroyed about 100 hectares of woodland.
Fires blazed in Rashayya in the eastern Bekaa Valley and Barouk in the southeastern Shouf region and in Deir El Qamar also in Shouf region.
Big fires were also reported in the northern region of Akkar and several in the Metn area northeast of Beirut and some other regions.Some residents had been evacuated. Few people trying to fight fires in the north had suffered from smoke inhalation.
The Lebanese Committee for the Prevention of Fires urged the authorities to declare a state of emergency.Lebanon's interior minister requested fire-fighting planes from Italy.
  
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