Beirut - Lebanese Minister of Interior Ziad Baroud declared organizing a local urgent campaign under the name of “Forever Green” working on gathering donations to ensure sophisticated equipments to fight fires that devoured the grasslands in Lebanon.

Baroud clarified for the journalists on Thursday evening after his meeting with representatives of economic and financial associations of the civil society that, “the urgent campaign ends the next Monday”, indicating that the “the donations has reached so far $10 million dollars”.

He also said that, “this work is the production of a collaborative work with the civil society who was initiative with the economic associations”. He added that, “The working group who met today chose to name the campaign ‘Forever green’ (…) when we close up the donations that have been collected we will work on buying what can be bought we will demonstrate it to the Lebanese government in order for the ministers to grant us their approval”.

The fires that took place on last Tuesday have spread on 70 million square meter of land. Lebanon is known to witness many seasonal fires especially in summer and autumn which shrinks its green lands to become only 13% of its surface.