Firemen facing a hard time in putting out fire at Gunung Tempurung

IPOH: Perak Fire and Rescue department had a hard time putting out a fire at Gunung Tempurung near Sungai Siput Selatan new village in Kampar.

Department's Zone 1 chief Ruhisha Haris said they had difficulties accessing the limestone mountain, as the slopes were between 80 and 90 degrees steep.

He said the department had received reports about the fire, which had engulfed 4.05ha of the mountainous forest, at about 7.47pm on Saturday.

"A team was immediately deployed to inspect the mountain on the night itself.

"We could see billowing smoke around but there was nothing much we could do, due to low visibility at the affected area," he said.

Ruhisha said the fire rescue team had scouted the mountain again on a helicopter on Sunday to get a better picture of the fire condition.

"We managed to carry out fire rescue operations to prevent fire from spreading," he said, adding that a taskforce had been formed to monitor the progress.

"Rain is expected over the next few days, and I hope the downpour could be of help to douse the fire," he said.

Ruhisha said the site of the fire was about half a kilometres away from village settlements, thus no casualties had been reported.

"Early investigations showed that the fire occurred due to natural causes, and lighting strikes could be one of the factors," he said.