Kilimanjaro

Kilimanjaro on Tanzania map

Main article: Africa

East African Fault

Main article: East African Fault (rift valley)

Kilimanjaro is part of the East African Mountains, which in turn are part of the East African Fault. The volcano is located 80 km directly from the rift valley^[1].

Three peaks and their geology

Mount Kilimanjaro consists of three peaks, each of which was an active volcano:

• Kibo (according to a 2014 measurement, the height of 5,888 m above sea level is the highest point in Africa) in the center,
• Mavenzi (5149 m) in the east,
• Shire to the west (3962 m).

About 250 smaller cones are located on either side of these three peaks on the northwest/southeast axis.

Peaks of Kibo and Mavenzi (right)

Kilimanjaro is the second highest volcano in the world.

Shire, Parantropes and Early Homo

The volcanic activity of the Shire began 2.5 million years ago and reached its greatest activity about 1.9 million years ago, after which the northern part of the crater collapsed. At this time, the height of the volcano crater reached an elevation of 4900 to 5200 meters above sea level.

Massive Australopithecus Paranthropus boisei (Parantrop Boysa, aka Zinjanthrope) could have witnessed the beginning of the eruption. Their found bones date back to 2.5 to 1 million years ago. Huge chewing teeth (premolars and molars) corresponded to impressive jaw sizes and bone ridges for attaching chewing muscles. Therefore, the first skull of Parantrop Boyce (OH 5, which Mary Leakey found in Olduvai in 1959) was even nicknamed the Nutcracker (Nutcracker Man)^[2].

Parantropes were large - up to 70 kg in weight - specialized herbivorous creatures that lived along the banks of rivers and lakes in dense thickets. Their lifestyle in some ways resembled that of modern gorillas. However, they retained a two-legged gait and even perhaps knew how to make tools. Stone tools and bone fragments were found in the layers with parantropes, with which the hominids ruptured the termites. Also, the brush of these primates was adapted for the manufacture and use of tools.

Paranthropus boisei

Movies:

• Disappeared People (2016)

Parantropes relied on size and herbivore. This led them to ecological specialization and extinction. However, in the same layers with parantropes, the remains of the first representatives of hominin - the so-called "early Homo" - more progressive hominids with the large brain^[3] were found].

A skillful man (Homo habilis, 2.3-1.5 million rubles) was the first of our ancestors who began to regularly make stone tools and switched to omnivore. The first specimen was discovered by archaeologists Mary and Louis Leakey in November 1960 in the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania. A skillful person begins a rapid growth in the size of the brain. In Homo habilis, it was 600-700 sm³. Height - up to 1.2 m, body weight - about 40-50 kg.

Homo Habilis

Homo habilis was the creator of the early pebble (so-called "Olduvai" or "Oldovan") culture, which is so named for part of the East African rift system - the Alduvai Gorge in Tanzania, in the Ngorongoro crater area.

The tools that the skillful man made were almost all quartz, and quartz was not found in the parking lots of these people. They brought it from a distance of 3 to 15 km. However, unlike later types of Homo, habilis were not very careful about their tools and, often, after short-term use, simply threw them away.

Scientists from Simon Fraser University suggest that the skillful man left Africa before the appearance of the upright man, becoming the ancestor of the Flores man.

The second of the established species of "early Homo," coexisting with Homo habilis (since the remains were found in the same locations and in the same layers - 2.3-1.5 million rubles), which had a large brain, was first described by V.P. Alekseev as Pithecanthropus rudolfensis in 1978. The brain volume of H. rudolfensis is more than 700 cm3.

Later, after the collapse of the northern part of the Shire crater 1.9 million years ago, two cones formed on its surface: in the northwest and in the center.

Today, the Shire is a plateau at an altitude of 3,800 meters, which may be filled with a caldera of this volcano. The remaining edge of the caldera is greatly destroyed by erosion and only the southern and western edges remain of it. To the northeast of the crater on an area of ​ ​ 6200 hectares, the mountain has the shape of a plateau.^[4]

Mavenzi, Homo erectus and Homo heidelbergensis

The eruptions of Mavenzi and Kibo began about 1 million years ago. By this time, Homo Erectus had long begun its expansion beyond Africa (1.8 million hp) and mastered fire (1.4 million hp). They also lived near Kilimanjaro (bones found in the same Olduvai site^[5].

Homo erectus. Danakil UA 31, East Africa, 1 million years ago. Reconstruction carried out by Oleg Osipov specifically for Антропогенез.ру

The youngest rocks of Mavenzi date back to 448 thousand years. By this time, there was already an evolutionary divergence in the nuclear DNA of the Denisovan branch with the branch common to the Heidelbergans from the Sima de los Uesos cave in Spanish Atapuerc and the Neanderthals (about 500 thousand years ago^[6]). Bones of Homo heidelbergensis were found, including near Kilimanjaro near Lake Eyashi.

Much of the eastern side of Mavenzi is destroyed by erosion. Mavenzi is sometimes considered the third highest peak in Africa after Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya.

Mavenzi (foreground) and Kibo

Climbing the Mavenzi volcano requires climbing training and was prohibited due to the high risk to life. For the most part, this ban was made due to the influence of the media on the tourist flow to Tanzania. Provocative headlines (such as "Death on Kilimanjaro") create a negative opinion among readers about the mountain range as a whole, blurring the boundaries between professional mountaineering and pedestrian tracking.

Kibo and Mitochondrial Eve

Kibo is Kilimanjaro's largest 24 km wide cone at saddle level, which separates it from Mavenzi at 4,400 metres above sea level.

Top of Kibo on Google Maps in 2018

The last eruption that formed the crater dates back to 270-170 thousand years ago (Wilkinson, 1986;^[7]

The ashes of this eruption could see Mitochondrial Eve - the woman who became the only one whose descendants on the female line survived to this day. Other women lived in parallel with it, but their mitochondrial DNA has not survived to our time. From them, people could get other sections of nuclear DNA. Since mitochondrial DNA is inherited only through the maternal line, in all living people, such DNA was obtained from "Eva."

During the oldest separation of the ancestral population of people, four main haplogroups were formed: L0, L1, L2, L3. Of these, the first prevails among the Bushmen, the second among the Pygmies. The last two also exist in African peoples, but only from haplogroup L3 come macrogroups M and N, the carriers of which migrated from Africa to Eurasia.

The last volcanic activity of Kibo probably occurred about 150 thousand years ago and was associated not with the main crater, but with parasitic cones in the Northwest and Southeast of Kilimanjaro.

About 100 thousand years ago, part of the Kibo crater collapsed, as a result of which the Western Breach was formed.

The edges of the crater rise to a height of 180 to 200 meters on the south side and form a caldera 2.4 km wide and 3.6 km long, formed by the collapse of the top of the volcano. Inside this caldera is an inner cone (only 60 meters below Uhuru Peak^[8]inside which is located^[8] Röich crater with a diameter of 820 meters, so named by the Tanganyika government in 1954 in honor of the Volga German, former Russian army officer Richard Gustavovich Röich, who was the first to look into the crater and made his 25th ascent to the top of the mountain (out of 65 attempts made in his life).

The ash pit inside the Ryoha crater has a diameter of 350 meters and a depth of 130 meters.

Image: (ss) Takashi Muramatsu

In the twentieth century, fumaroles acting in the crater gas were mentioned.^[8]

Ash Pit in Kibo Crater

Kibo has about 250 Strambolian-type parasitic cones on the northwest and southeast sides, formed between 200 and 150 thousand years ago. They reach the limits of the Chala and Taveta lakes in the southeast direction and the Lengurumani plain in the northwest. Most of these cones are well preserved, except for those located on the saddle between Kibo and Mavenzi, and were badly damaged by the movement of glaciers. Despite the small size of these cones, the lava that erupted from them largely formed Mount Kilimanjaro.

According to data obtained from the Maasai in the 19th century, on the site of modern Lake Chala, located on the eastern side of Kibo, there was a village destroyed by the^[4] eruption].

Simplified geological map of the three volcanic centers of Kilimanjaro (2008). The top right corner tie-in shows its location as part of the East Africa Rift System East Arm

Источник: Researchgate.net Petrology and geochemistry of alkaline lava series, Kilimanjaro, Tanzania: New constraints on petrogenetic processes.^[7]

Researches

1848: German missionary Rebmann makes first report

The first written report on Kilimanjaro appeared in 1848 and belongs to Johan Rebmann, a German missionary traveler. He does not mention a possible aspect of volcanism and most likely does the right thing if you recall that storm in academia and salons that rose from the description of a snow peak near the equator alone. But of course the volcanic origin of the mountain was pretty obvious, especially to the experts who followed Rebmann. No doubt they wondered when Kilimanjaro erupted the last time and if he was going to do it again.

1887: On the fifth attempt, the Hungarian Count Teleki reaches a height of 5270 m

In 1861, a height of 2500 m was reached, in 1862 - 4200 m, in 1883, 1884 and 1887 - a mark of 5270 m. All these ascents were made by the Hungarian Count Samuel Teleki.

In 1861, geologist Richard Thornton noted that the edge of the Kibo crater remains at least partially undisturbed. In 1886, naturalist and adventurer Harry Johnston lamented the failure of his attempts to look inside the Kilimanjaro crater from its snowy edge.

1889: German Meyer, Austrian Purtscheller and Chaga Lauvo reach the summit

On October 5, 1889, German traveler and geologist Hans Meyer, along with Austrian climber Ludwig Purtscheller, reached the summit for the first time. Only in 1996, their fellow ascent from the Chaga people, Mzee Lauvo (Lavo), who was supposed to be more than 123 years old, died in Maranga. He was only 18 years old when, in 1889, the chief of the Marealle I tribe asked Lauvo to become a guide for Meyer and Purtscheller. The guide was paid only 1 Tanzanian shilling a day.

Meyer became the first person to approve the status of a volcano for Kilimanjaro. He saw that the crater was filled with ice and snow - almost entirely. It is true that ice and snow prevented it from reaching the inner cone rising about 150 m above the caldera's bottom, but Meyer noted that the top of the cone itself is completely free of them. This allowed him to assume that enough underground heat still persists in the area of the cone, which prevents precipitation from accumulating. But the rest of Kilimanjaro's volcanic activity remains in the past, Meyer concluded: no trace of hot springs, fumarol (emitting gases) and solfatar (emitting sulfur sediments).

According to Meyer, Kibo's last large eruption occurred when its former rounded dome failed and gave the mountain its current appearance with a serrated, cropped edge. This collapse led to the formation of a caldera at the top (as any sufficiently large cauldron-shaped volcanic depression is called, Ngorongoro is the most striking example), inside which subsequent less powerful eruptions rebuilt the inner cone, although "apparently without the formation of a crater," Meyer wrote in 1900. Meyer's authoritative conclusion that Kilimanjaro was extinct and did not even have a crater prevailed for almost forty years, although it should be noted that during all this time only five researchers were able to climb to the top, and none of them could get more information than the pioneer.

1912: Conquest of Mavenzi

Mavenzi was conquered only in 1912 by Ohler and Klute.

Meanwhile, the amount of ice on the summit of Kibo gradually decreased, which is why some suggested that the mountain warms up rather than cools down. Eventually, the path to the inner cone opened up.

1927: Former Russian army officer Röich was the first to look into the inner cone

Richard Röich, a former Cossack officer of the Russian army, was the first to look into the crater of the inner cone of Kilimanjaro

The first person to peer into the crater of the inner Kibo cone from its edge was Pastor Richard Gustavovich Röich, a Volga German, a former Cossack officer of the Russian Empire and the White Army, who became the Lutheran missionary^[9]. During his long life in Marangu, Ryoch climbed Kilimanjaro more than forty times (according to other sources, more than sixty)! During his first ascent in September 1926, dedicated to hoisting on top of a Christian banner, he found a frozen leopard on top. During his second ascent, on July 19, 1927, he discovered an inner crater, and he was named after him. But it seems that the glorification of his name did not make much impression on Ryoich. The fact that he cut off the leopard's ear and tried to cut off his head after that is at least mentioned in his records, but not a word about the crater.

1933: Kilimanjaro volcanic activity controversy begins

Nevertheless, several climbers visited Røyha Ash Crater within a few years of its discovery, and the first suggestion that Kilimanjaro may not be entirely extinct is that of Bill Tilman, an English climber and traveller. He rose to the peak in August 1933 and, by the way, recorded in a book of visitors in the Kibo hut that he saw sulfur smoke rising from the edge of the inner crater and sulfur raids at the bottom of the caldera around him. At the bottom, Tilman's observations caused a lot of excitement. Probably, the underground heat, which is said to destroy the ice cap, does not decrease, but probably increases, the sulfur emissions that Tilman observed are harbingers of a large eruption, it was said.

Seeking an answer, venerable Pastor Röich climbed the mountain again less than three weeks after Tilman's visit. He searched for sulfur emissions, but could not confirm Tilman's observations. In fact, he directly denied them: "I am afraid that Mr. Tilman mistook a small cloud rotating due to air currents for sulfur smoke of a certain kind," he wrote.

View of Kibo in 1938 with an impressive snow cap

With this rebuttal from the man who knew the mountain best, Tilman's report was rejected and the fears of an impending eruption subsided. Until 1942, when in July a certain traveler again discovered sulfur yields. This time the observation was checked by volcanologist J. Richard, who in August of that year saw sulphur gas rising from several wells and very pure sulphur deposits around them. Despite the ongoing world war, Richard's report raised a great concern that spread far beyond the slopes of the volcano. "Kilimanjaro is an active volcano," said the first of a series of correspondence in London newspapers. Another recalled earlier observations of increasing underground heat flux. Julian Huxley, a nature researcher, noted that this evidence seems to indicate a resumption of Kilimanjaro volcanic activity. The Illustrated London News placed a piece headlined "Active or Extinct - Kilimanjaro's Problem," but for the population at the foot of the mountain, the question was different: when it would start erupting.

In February 1943, during his second ascent to the crater, Richard found that the number of fumaroles had risen from six to twenty, and the smoke was already visible from some distance. In July of that year, meteorologist Spink discovered almost continuous fumarole lines on the west and south sides of the crater. Gas emissions and sulfur deposits were abundant, and it often fell to the knees into warmed slag, Spink reported. At the same time, residents of the western foothills of Kilimanjaro reported that threatening rock came from inside the mountain to them, as from a metro train suitable and moving away from the station. At the beginning of 1944, with some interruptions, there were weak tremors, from which houses cracked. The fears of the eruption increased greatly. In April 1944, geologist Peter Kent reviewed the entire situation in an article published by the prestigious scientific journal Nature entitled Kilimanjaro - Active Volcano. "There is no doubt that this volcano should not be considered extinct," Kent wrote. He wondered if a repeat of the great eruptions of the past, which partially leveled East Africa, covering it with lava flows and ash, was possible, and came to the conclusion that such events would develop very slowly, if at all possible.

But discreet assessments in scientific journals could not reassure the population of the area surrounding Kilimanjaro. Just before that, Aldoño Lengai, a volcano in the adjacent East African Fault Valley, had erupted, not catastrophically but strongly enough to eject clouds of suffocating ash for miles around. Only semi-nomadic tribes live in those places, such as the Maasai, who were able to evacuate urgently, but the lower slopes of Kilimanjaro are very densely populated, the villages stand in an almost solid ring, and an eruption would threaten thousands of people. It would litter vast fields of wheat, coffee plantations, banana groves and hundreds of small farms and farms. In an atmosphere of general concern that something should be done, Spink marked the sulfur deposits with risk marks, so that their increase could be tracked, and Richard organized a system of observations with a local guide, so that he had to measure the temperature of the outgoing gases from certain fumaroles every month. No one would have been able to prevent an eruption if it was going to happen, but at least that monitoring could have given some warning about it.

By the end of the war in 1945, Richard noted a strong decrease in activity in the crater, and Spink, on the contrary, its increase. But whatever these contradictory messages mean, the unrealized threat soon ceased to be a threat at all. Over the months, years passed, and Kilimanjaro smoked only slightly, if not fade at all, and people on its outskirts relaxed. There was no more fear. But while the population has learned little by little to live with a warm and quietly steaming volcano underfoot and overhead, earlier fears finally forced the government to take action. His commissions checked the evidence and decided that a thorough study of the volcano should be carried out in order to determine not only the danger of an eruption, but also the effect of reducing the ice cap on the water supply and the scale of sulfur deposits in the crater. Shortages around the world at that time made sulfur deposits an important resource, and the corresponding institution wanted to know the economic feasibility of developing them in the Kibo crater.

1957: Kilimanjaro is an extinct volcano

The study was carried out by the combined efforts of geologists at the University of Sheffield and the Tanganyika search party. The first expedition to the mountain took place in 1953, the second in 1957. In relation to the eruption, the study reassured everyone: it was confirmed that Kilimanjaro is a sleeping, almost extinct volcano. With regard to water resources, work has shown that they are more dependent on rainfall on the slopes than on the melting of glaciers on the summit. Finally, sulfur deposits were found to be negligible in order to develop them.

Glaciers

Glacier Area

20 thousand years ago, during the last glacial maximum, the area of ​ ​ the ice cap on Kilimanjaro reached its largest size - 400 km ².

After a significant reduction in ice cover, in the period 11-4.5 thousand years ago, the area of ​ ​ glaciers again increased significantly. At the same time, the water level in the lakes of the East African Fault increased by 100 meters^[8].

In 1889, glaciers were still descending to a height of 4,500 meters and covered 20 km ² the surface of the volcano.

By 1938, their area was reduced to 11.4 km ².

Comparison of the area of ​ ​ glaciers in 1912 and 2011

By 2011, only 8 glaciers with an area of ​ ​ only 1.76 km ² remained. All of them are located above the 5000^[8] mark^[8].

Causes of glacial melting

For 2018, at an altitude where glaciers are located, the temperature constantly remains below 0 ° C. So what is the reason for their disappearance? Nobody knows exactly that.

This may be due to rising temperatures in the Indian Ocean, as well as local changes caused by deforestation, resulting in lower vegetation cover density and lower atmospheric humidity. As a result, ice quickly passes from a solid state to a gaseous state without being in a liquid state (sublimates).

There is a pattern between reduced ice cover and the rate of forest loss, especially in the early twentieth century.

Changes in Kilimanjaro's snow cover may also be due to changes in Earth's orbit in cycles that are repeated every few hundred years. But one way or another, the conditions that have developed in recent centuries are unique over the past 10 thousand years.

The melting of the Kilimanjaro glaciers in 2019 pushed France to develop a research project. According to RFI Kiswahili news agency, during the discussion of this project in the Tanzanian city of Dar es Salaam, French Ambassador to Tanzania Frederic Clavier said that the purpose of the project is to take snow samples from the mountain and conduct a study. This measure is said to help preserve the only snow left in Africa and assist in the fight against global warming.

"The next step in this international project is to focus on the only remaining snow in Africa located on Mount Kilimanjaro. The project is mutually beneficial for all parties, it will be established by stakeholders in Tanzania, including the country's Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, national institutions such as the Tanzanian National Parks Authority (TANAPA), Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute (TAWIRI), Tanzania Forestry Research Institute (TAFORI), Tanzania Forest Services Authority, Tanzania Meteorological Authority, Tanzania Science and Technology Commission and various universities, "noted[10].

In October 2021, cosmonaut Tom Peske shared a photo of Kilimanjaro from orbit.

Consequences of melting glaciers

Snow on Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania melts rapidly, leading to sad consequences for wildlife and the environment in the Amboseli National Park , Anadolu Agency reported on October 31, 2021.

Chief Executive Officer of the Wildlife Research and Training Institute in Kenya, Patrick Omondi, said the melting snow has turned a large area of the 392 square kilometres Amboseli National Park into a swamp.

He added that the melting of the Mount Kilimanjaro snow glacier had both positive and negative consequences. From Kenya, the results will be positive.

"Melting glaciers have seeped in and formed swamps. Amboceli is now the new bird paradise, we've got birds like flamingos that weren't here before , "he said.

"These marshes sometimes serve local communities when they come to water their animals during times of severe drought. Now there will be a permanent source of water here, "Omondi said.

However, the melting of Kilimanjaro negatively affects Tanzania.

"On the other hand, the snow is melting much more slowly. Because of this , there is a drought on the part of Tanzania. The animals scatter and this will exacerbate the conflict between humans, "Omondi said.

Paleoclimatologists warned that melting glaciers would reduce water resources for communities living around the mountains, especially on the Tanzanian side. Streams and rivers originating in the mountains have either dried up or have a smaller volume of water.

Fauna

In August 2019, German zoologists managed to film a Tanzanian duker (Dubot duker) - the rarest antelope that scientists have not been able to detect for many years.

Researchers from the Julius and Maximilian University of Würzburg installed five hidden cameras each at 66 points on Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. Two weeks later, the records were collected and analyzed.

"Our video traps shot Tanzanian dukers a total of 105 times in 11 places at an altitude of 1920 to 3849 meters above sea level," says Friederike Gebert, who studied 80,000 videos and found 1,600 personnel with these rare mammals. "There's even a video of them trying to mate."

The first photographs of the Tanzanian duker were obtained in 2003. This is a small antelope 65 centimeters high at the withers with horns eight to 12 centimeters long. Scientists have observed them with frogs in their mouths and believe they can hunt other animals.

Tanzanian dukers are very small, nocturnal and prefer dense thickets, so they eluded the attention of specialists for a long time.

In addition to Tanzanian dukers, the hidden cameras also removed other animals, including bush pigs, porcupines, small kudus and baboons, as well as a serval of unusual black color.

Flora

Entandrophragma is Africa's tallest tree

In May 2020, it became known that German scientists found a very tall tree on the slopes of Kilimanjaro. They reported that we are talking about entandrophragm (Entandrophragma excelsum) from the Meliaceae family, whose height exceeds 81.5 meters.

Researchers suggest they have found the tallest tree in Africa. These trees grow at high elevations above sea level. On Kilimanjaro, they can be found at the 1400m to 2100m marks^[11].

At the same time, parts of the continent are not yet sufficiently explored, so that in southern Africa or in the mountains of the Eastern Rift there is a chance to detect tall trees. Previously, the highest tree on the continent was considered the representative of the willow eucalyptus (Eucalyptus saligna) imported from Australia, which grew to 81.5 meters. The plant died in 2006.

At this time, according to official figures, the evergreen sequoia Hypervirens (Sequoia sempervirens) is recognized as the tallest tree in the world. She was found in the US state of California. The height of this tree is 112.7 meters.

The highest tropical tree in the world is considered to be a culture belonging to the genus of shorea from the dipterocarp family (Shorea faguetiana). In 2016, this tree was discovered on the Malaysian island of Borneo. He was accidentally found by environmentalists who were circling the jungle in a helicopter. The diameter of the crown of a giant tropical tree reaches 40 meters, and its height is 89.5 meters.

Cross of Senecio kilimanjari

For millions of years, the spider Senecio kilimanjari, native to Kilimanjaro, has hardly undergone a change. In similar thickets, ancient lizards once walked.

The cross of Senecio kilimanjari. TAdviser Expedition, February 2019

The unique cross grows on the mountain, starting at a 3-kilometer height. There is not much precipitation in this zone, and therefore the density of the prehistoric forest is low. Above 4.3 kilometers along the slope, the colony ends.

Fires

2022: Fire destroys 1.9% of natural vegetation in Kilimanjaro

On October 22, 2022, a fire broke out on Mount Kilimanjaro. Tanzania National Parks Authority (TANAPA) Environmental Protection Commissioner William Mwakilema reported that fires did break out in selected sections of the mountain, which is called the "roof of Africa."

"Firefighters have already arrived on the mountain in order to contain the spread of the fire," W. Mwakilema told Xinhua by phone.

TANAPA issued a short statement in the afternoon, from which it follows that the fire started the night before.

Nurdin Babu, Kilimanjaro Regional Commissioner, told the Xinhua Correspondent by phone that he, along with specialists, is flying over the mountain in order to carry out aerial surveys and determine the areas covered by the fire and the extent of the damage caused.

"The cause of the fire has not yet been discovered," said a statement signed by TANAPA senior public relations officer Katerina Mbena.

Tanzania firefighters joined forces with TANAPA gamekeepers, police and staff of the African Wildlife Management College in the Kilimanjaro region to contain the fire, the statement noted.

As a result, at least 34.2 square kilometers of natural vegetation on Mount Kilimanjaro were destroyed in a fire that burned for ten days. This was announced on November 25, 2022 by Tanzania National Parks Authority Environmental Protection Commissioner/TANAPA/William Mwakilema.

According to him, the area of ​ ​ the destroyed flora is 1.9 percent. of the entire area of ​ ​ the protected area of ​ ​ the mountain.

The fire also killed many snakes, lizards and rats, W. Mwakilema told a news briefing in the northern Tanzania city of Arusha on the aftermath of the fire that raged on the mountain from October 21 to November 1.

Firefighters at various public and private institutions have found it difficult to fight the blaze, the commissioner said, including because of the high altitude, inaccessibility of some areas engulfed in the fire, as well as strong winds that further fanned the flames.

Around Kilimanjaro, 50% of the forests disappeared from 1880 to 2023.

2020

A wildfire started on Kilimanjaro in the middle of the day on October 11, 2020.

The fire occurred at a mark of 2.7-3 thousand meters, or half the way from the foot of the mountain to its top. The flame covered more than 100 square meters. km slopes.

The situation was complicated by the inaccessibility of the fire area.

According to information from the official representative of Tanapa Pascal Schelutete, the fire occurred in the Whona recreation area popular with tourists. Tanzanian authorities have not yet found out what caused it. They suggest that the fire could have started due to employees of the recreation center, who warmed up food for guests. The previous time the Kilimanjaro fire was in 2016.

By October 20, large fires were eliminated, but there were still separate fires in the Mandara Camp area.

Great assistance to the fighters against the elements was provided by the all-wheel drive Russian car equipment "Kamaz," which has been supplied to Tanzania since 2016. Since the first day of the fire, three all-wheel drive cargo and passenger trucks KAMAZ-4326 (4x4), recruited from College of African Wildlife Management, have been involved in the main mechanized transfer of people, food, materials. This turned out to be possible due to the exceptional technical characteristics of Kamaz technology: trucks from other manufacturers were unable to operate in the conditions of steep slopes, rugged terrain and the heights of Kilimanjaro. According to a representative of Motorstan Distribution LTD (ALFORTA GROUP), a KAMAZ dealer working in Tanzania, employees of the services involved in extinguishing the fire were literally amazed and delighted with the capabilities and patency of Russian KAMAZ.

It was later reported that the fire destroyed 95.5 square meters. km of vegetation and 12 huts, as well as two toilets and solar equipment used by tourists as they climb the mountain.

1967: Fire destroys topsoil, first revealing purple-crimson stones - Tanzanites

Tanzanite was first found in 1967 in Tanzania by African Ali Juyawati at the foot of Kilimanjaro. The African Masai tribe discovered a burnt clearing at the foot of Kilimanjaro, on which, in addition to grass and trees, fire destroyed the topsoil, revealing transparent purple-crimson stones to the human gaze.

Climbing Kilimanjaro

Main article: Climbing Kilimanjaro

TAdviser conducted its own expedition to the summit and to the crater of Kilimanjaro volcano. More on this here.

Cable car on Kilimanjaro

Main article: Cable car in Kilimanjaro

Unusual facts

2019: Excavating father's grave in search of blanket

In May 2019, it was reported that Joseph Saluni, a 28-year-old resident of Mwakwaru Ngalitati village of Siha district of Kilimanjaro region in Tanzania, is suspected of excavating his father's grave. This is reported by the newspaper Nipashe with reference to its sources.

His father was buried three years ago.

"According to investigators, Saluni unearthed the grave without special permission to get the blanket in which the body of the deceased was wrapped," said Hamisi Issa, police chief for the Kilimanjaro region.

According to him, the suspect complained to the police about the cool weather, so he allegedly decided to dig up a blanket^[12].

Notes