The Public Relations Department of Tehran Oil Refining and Distribution Company on Wednesday said a fire caused by a gasoline leak at Shahid Tondgouyan Refinery has killed one worker and injured another.
A spokesman of the refinery in the south of Tehran on Wednesday told reporters that the fire which was caused by a gasoline leak has been extinguished. In November 2017 another fire in the same refinery killed eight engineers and technicians.
News agencies have also reported a fire in the storage facilities of Khuzestan Steel Company on Wednesday as well as fires in 18 railway cars in Eslamshahr, in the storehouses of a food production factory and at as shopping arcade in Mashhad on Tuesday.
Fire Department and other officials have said that all these fires were extinguished and have attributed them to accidents.
In recent days raging fires that engulfed the forests and meadows of Kohkiloyeh and Boyer Ahmad, Lorestan, Ilam and Khuzestan in the southwest of the country as well as at Chitgar Park in the west of the capital were contained with the help of volunteers. Media claim some of these fires including the fires at Chitgar Park were deliberate.
Iranian environmental activists have criticized the government for lack of coordination between agencies and scarcity of fire extinguishing equipment for putting out the wildfires.
The head of the Forestry Organization of Iran says helicopters were not sent to extinguish the fires as the organization owes 300 billion rials (about $2 million) to the Defense Ministry. Latest reports say the Iranian Planning and Budget Organization has undertaken to pay back half of the debt to the armed forces to allow their equipment to be used by the Forestry Organization.
