SonaGas, a subsidiary of Angola’s national oil company Sonangol, has expressed concerns over the increasing fire risks posed by hunters and farmers near its gas reception and production facility in Soyo, Zaire province.
These fires, primarily set for land clearing and hunting, threaten the safety of the Angola LNG plant and the turbines at the Soyo combined cycle power plant.
Jacelino Pinto, the unit’s supervisor, warned that fires around the plant perimeter often send sparks into the facility, creating a serious hazard.
“Farmers are preparing cultivation areas and hunting, but during these fires, sparks can reach inside the unit, putting our operations at significant risk,” Pinto said in an interview with Radio Nacional de Angola.
He emphasized that strict safety protocols must be maintained to prevent a potential catastrophe, noting that wind often spreads embers into the gas facility and pipeline corridors, heightening the risk of fire or explosion.
The issue of forest fires is not isolated to Soyo. Environmental activist Rafael Marques, director of the Maka Angola portal, highlighted in a recent article that forest fires have become a growing problem in Angola.
According to the Global Forest Fire Information System, six percent of Angola’s land surface was ravaged by fires in the second week of September 2024, the highest percentage globally. Angola’s neighbor, the Democratic Republic of Congo, followed with 2.6 percent.
Global Forest Watch also reported 109,349 forest fire alerts in Angola for 2024 alone. Since 2001, the country has lost nearly four million hectares of tree cover, equating to about seven percent of its total forested land.
