It is very hard to give any assessment at this time, and I can only say that the damage is extremely great.

The Minister of Nature Protection of Armenia, Minister Artsvik Minasyan, stated the aforesaid with respect to the continuing large fire at Khosrov Forest State Reserve national park, reported RFE/RL Armenian service. 

Minasyan noted that the measures taken from the very outset of this fire had not yielded any results. But he expressed the hope that owing to the assistance by the Russian firefighting waterbomber aircraft that was dispatched to Armenia, it will be possible to put out the fire on this very day.

According to director Karen Manvelyan of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF)-Armenia, this fire is a great catastrophe for the country.

But director Hovhannes Khangeldyan of the Crisis Management Center noted, for his part, that although Armenia has ample means to be able to put out this large fire, there is a difficulty in approaching the affected area.

A call was received, on August 12 at 12:30pm, informing that a vegetation area was on fire about 20km north of Urtsadzor village in Ararat Province, at the aforementioned national park.

According to preliminary information, 200 to 250 hectares of vegetation and forest area is affected by this fire.