Kenya Forest Service (KFS) Chairman Peter Kinyua has praised Nairobi Metropolitan Service (NMS) for swooping in to put out a night fire at the institution's headquarters.
Kinyua noted that the fire had broken out on Monday, January 25 at 11:30 p.m. at the KFS headquarters in Karura along Kiambu Road.
NMS, which is headed by Mohammed Badi, immediately contained the fire in partnership with General Service Unit (GSU).
Videos shared by the KBC showed a big cloud of fire consuming a section of the headquarters before the officers from the two organisations contained it.
The teams deployed a number of water and fire trucks during the operation.
Shortly after the fire was contained, Environment and Forestry Keriako Tobiko visited the institution to access the damage as investigations commence.
It was not clear what caused the fire.
The forestry department has in the past year suffered fire breakouts that have in various instances damaged iconic forests across the country.
In May 2020, an inferno that broke out at the Tsavo East National Park destroyed 4730.6 acres of land.
Tsavo East park forms the largest protected area in Kenya and is home to most of the larger mammals, vast herds of dust –red elephant, Rhino, buffalo, lion, leopard, pods of hippo, crocodile, waterbucks, lesser Kudu, gerenuk, and the prolific birdlife which features nearly 500 recorded species.
In July that year, another inferno engulfed a section of the Tsavo West National Park destroying vegetation on thousands of acres of land.
Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) attributed the source of the fire to a little boy who was burning litter at a village called Lebanon in Voi.
Below is the video
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