Photo: Wambugu Kanyi/Nairobi Star

Raging fires on Mount Kenya has destroyed indigenous trees, thousands of acres of dry grasslands and has endangered thousands of wild animals in the area.

The fires destroying Mt Kenya and the Aberdare forest ranges which are two of the country's most important water towers is a national disaster.

That way, the government will be forced to allocate resources and personnel to assist the Kenya Wildlife Services and the Kenya Forest Services who have been trying to put out the fires that have been raging for more than ten days.

The two organisations are poorly resourced and equipped to deal with the multiple fires that have destroyed over 80 square kilometers of the forest grassland and moorlands and which is spreading upwards towards whatever remains of the ice cap. It is disheartening that our political leadership are unconcerned about the fires which -literally- threaten the lives of millions of Kenyans. They should be leading by example by offering their choppers and planes to help in the firefighting effort instead of criss crossing the country attending political rallies.

Unless of course the government and the political leadership are waiting for yet another private sector driven initiative -Kenyans for Mount Kenya, maybe- to mobilise the resources, equipment and volunteers to help protect a national resource!

Quote of the day:"The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all of your time," Willem de Kooning was a Dutch American abstract expressionist artist who was born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands and died on March 19, 1997.