Pulag summit will need months to recover from fire

BAGUIO CITY, Philippines — Parts of Mount Pulag will be closed to trekkers for at least five months to allow vegetation in an area burned in a brush fire to grow back.

 

Giovanni Fontanilla, information officer of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources-Cordillera said Regional Director Ralph Pablo ordered the closure of some areas of the national park such as the Akiki trail and the summit.

 

On January 20, at least 5.8 hectares of the grassland area from the Saddle Camp Site up to the ridge slopes in the northeastern part of Mount Pulag's summit was razed because of a freak grass and brush fire caused by a portable gas stove that caught fire.

 

The damaged area accounts for 1.5 percent of the total 387 hectares of grassland area.

 

Charges have been readied against seven mountaineers led by Ramon Kristomar Mackay, whose butane-fueled portable stove exploded while camping, for violations of provisions of the National Integrated Protected Areas System Act and Presidential Decree 705, known as the Forestry Reform Code of the Philippines.

 

In the meantime, trekkers can go to the tower sites and other peaks within the national park through the Ambangeg trail.

 

Mount Pulag National Park is a protected area and a forest reservation under the NIPAS Act. Section 78 of the Forestry Code also penalizes anyone who occupies, possesses or causes destruction to forest or grazing lands.

 

That includes causing a fire within forest or grazing lands due to negligence.

 

According to Director Pablo, the Environment department is considering new guidelines because of the fire. Those include the designation of open areas for cooking and requiring hikers with stoves to bring two five-pound fire extinguishers, as recommended by the Bureau of Fire Protection.

 

The fire incident was third time — fires also hit Pulag in 1998 and 2003 — since the protected area was opened to trekkers.