The Namibia Etosha National Park, which is home to black rhinos in a critical way, has engulfed in a huge fire

Namibia has sent more than 500 soldiers to help fight a huge forest fire that burned 30% of the country’s best known national park.

President Neumumbo Nandi-Nandaitwah’s office said on Sunday that an unknown number of fauna had been killed in the fire, which started last Monday and spread in the vast national park in Etosha in northern Namibia.

The park is home to hundreds of species of wild animals, including black rhinos in danger. The president’s office said that the fire had also spread to the villages on the outskirts of the park, but no human victim has been reported.

He said the cause of the fire was not yet certain.

A video on the NBC national broadcaster has shown sections of blackened trees and grass, and antelopes escaping from the fire.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDEZCW6FS-Y

The authorities sent helicopters and trucks with water tanks to fight fires. They deployed 500 soldiers on Sunday to help the operation and join a first contingent of 40 soldiers who had been sent to the park on Saturday, according to the president’s office.

The press release indicates that around 30% of grazing grounds in the 2,200 square kilometers park had been destroyed.

The Etosha National Park is one of the largest in Africa and is renowned for its salt mold which turns into lake during the rainy season and attracts fauna.

The Namibia Ministry of the Environment declared in a separate declaration that ecological damage to the park were extended and that the fire had burned almost 7,700 square kilometers of vegetation. The ministry said it suspected that the fire had been launched by a coal production company on a farm bordering the park.

Namibia is a warm and arid country in southern Africa and the fire came in the middle of the driest period of the year in Etosha.