The rain helped put out the fire in the Homolja mountains, Nenad Radulović, an activist of the Civic Association "Guardians of Homolja", told "Vreme", adding that a few trees were still burning.
"Fires broke out in several locations on the night between Saturday and Sunday." "For now, it is not known exactly how many locations the fire started from, but what we know for sure, and we got this information from the firemen, is that yesterday a person was noticed walking and setting fire on purpose," says Radulović.
In the fire which burned 200 hectares of forest and low vegetation on the border of the municipalities of Žagubica, Majdanpek and Bor, Radulović states.
"Exploratory works have been carried out at that location since 2004." The company in question is Dundee. But preparatory works for the installation of wind generators within the Crni vrh Power wind farm are also being rapidly carried out at that location," says Radulović, adding that nothing is accidental.
The fight is not over.
Today, there will be between 40 and 50 people on the ground in Homolje, both firefighters and foresters, as well as owners of surrounding properties and activists.
"The fires are localized and we are now continuing the incident." Considering that the fire broke out on the territory of three municipalities, we helped each other, we extinguished it together with colleagues from other fire departments," Radiša Simeonović, commander of the Žagubica fire department, told Vreme.
According to him, the firefighters did not notice anyone starting the fire, and the extent of the damage and what was burned will be determined later.
Who cares about the forest?
According to the earlier writing of the Center for Investigative Journalism of Serbia, 50 percent of the company Crni Vrh Power, which is building the park of the same name on Homolje, is owned by Nikola Petrović, the godmother of the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić.
Activists believe that the construction of a wind park would require cutting down a large area of forest in the territory, which is the largest continuous forest in Serbia and a candidate for being declared a National Park.
In addition, a surface gold mine was planned on Homolje, where cyanide would be used on a large area. After the previous minister of mining, Zorana Mihajlović, declared that such a mine would not be built, the same company reoriented itself to the project of an underground mine in a narrower location, according to local activists.
The Canadian company Dundee, which conducts research for a gold mine, was nicknamed New Rio Tinto among activists, and Homolje was nicknamed East Jadar.
