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Iran’s Lungs on Fire: Wildfires, Toxic Air and the Politics Behind an Environmental Collapse

Written by Staff Writer
A raging wildfire engulfs a forest in northern Iran
A raging wildfire engulfs a forest in northern Iran

As the Hyrcanian forests burn for weeks and power plants burn dirty mazut, Iran’s rulers blame drought and “human error” – while land-grabbers, weak institutions and opaque budgets turn the country’s lungs into fuel and real estate.

Six-minute read

Hyrcanian fires and a poisoned sky

On the northern slopes above the Caspian Sea, a fire that started near the village of Elit in Mazandaran Province at the end of October has burned on for weeks in Iran’s Hyrcanian forests — one of the oldest temperate forests on Earth and a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Officials call the operation to extinguish the fire “one of the most complex in recent years,” citing steep slopes, wind and drought. Helicopters and specialist aircraft were deployed only after two weeks of public pressure, and only after Tehran formally asked Turkey and other countries for help — a rare admission that it could not handle the disaster alone.

Local reports describe a three-week blaze around Marzan-Abad and Elit that was never fully extinguished, at least 20 injured volunteers, and roughly eight to ten hectares formally recorded as destroyed so far — small on paper, but in one of the most sensitive cores of a 40-million-year-old ecosystem.

At the same time, on the plains and in the cities below, the regime’s own health officials say nearly 59,000 people died in the last year from air pollution — about seven people every hour. Power plants across the country have once again turned to burning heavy fuel oil (mazut) because of gas shortages, even as major cities suffocate under smog.

Taken together, these two crises — burning forests and lethal air — reveal not just environmental bad luck, but a set of deliberate political and economic choices.

Hyrcanian forests: what exactly is burning?

The Hyrcanian forests form a 800–1,000 km belt along the southern Caspian coast in Iran and into Azerbaijan. UNESCO listed them in 2019 as a World Heritage site, praising their 25–50 million years of evolutionary history and their 3,200+ plant species, many of them endemic.

In Iran they cover roughly 1.6–1.7 million hectares, mostly in Gilan, Mazandaran and Golestan. They regulate local climate, stabilize soils, and act as natural filters for dust and pollutants — which is why many Iranians call them “the lungs of the country.”

The current fire near Elit is burning inside this belt, in a zone that also lies within the UNESCO-inscribed core.

Opposition sources and locals describe the blaze as an “ongoing catastrophe,” accusing the government of massacre of nature and criminal negligence for allowing the fire to burn for nearly three weeks with limited equipment. Their reports match independent accounts that:

  • The fire broke out late October and never fully went out, flaring repeatedly.

  • At least 8 hectares are officially acknowledged as burned so far in the Elit area, though experts warn that canopy and soil damage may spread beyond the mapped core.

  • Local residents and activists say the fire line was often fought mainly by volunteers with basic tools.

State media and foreign agencies largely confirm the timeline and difficulty of the blaze. But what many residents point out — bitterly — is the contrast: while helicopters, drones, armored vehicles and rapid-deployment forces have been dispatched within hours during recent popular uprisings, the same state allowed an ecological treasure to burn for days before sending even basic aerial support.

Missing helicopters, missing budgets

Under Iran’s constitution, forests and rangelands are public property managed by the Forests, Rangelands and Watershed Organization (FRWO) under the agriculture ministry. Yet when fires break out, responsibility is scattered among provincial governors, the FRWO, the Environmental Protection Organization, the military, and various crisis committees.

Analysis shows that between 2011 and 2021, roughly 228,000 hectares of forests and rangelands burned in Iran — an average of 21,000 hectares per year, about 9,000 hectares of forest and 11,000 of rangeland.

Despite this, the clerical regime in Iran still has no clear, stand-alone wildfire legislation with strong prevention, liability, and enforcement mechanisms. Forest laws mention fire, but mostly in passing.

Officials often fall back on climate change and drought. It is true that Iran is experiencing one of the worst multi-decade droughts in six decades, particularly in the north. But drought does not explain why budgets vanish, why helicopters are not bought, or why fires in sensitive areas burn unchecked for weeks.

From forest fire to land grab

The Elit fire has also revived suspicions that flames sometimes serve as a prelude to “development.” This time, it is not just activists who are raising the possibility.

Reza Aflatouni, head of Iran’s Forests Organization, told state media that initial findings in the Elit case “strongly suggest a human cause” and that investigators are examining “possible connections between the fire and efforts to rezone forest and farmland for private construction.”

The governor of Mazandaran, Mehdi Younesi-Rostami, likewise confirmed that security assessments point to human activity, not lightning or spontaneous combustion.

Even state media have quoted Aflatouni warning about “land grabbing” and illegal construction on high-grade farmland in northern Iran, warning that unchecked conversion is undermining food security.

Environmental groups in Kurdistan say over 90% of rangeland fires in the province are deliberate, often linked to land seizures or military violations; a recent report put the figure as high as 99%.

It would be irresponsible to claim a single, centrally directed conspiracy. But it is equally naive to treat each fire as an isolated accident when:

  • Officials themselves acknowledge land-grabbing pressures.

  • Burned lands do, in documented cases, end up reclassified or privately developed.

  • Penalties for illegal logging and encroachment are often limited to small fines, with many offenders continuing business as usual.

Fire, in this context, becomes not just a tragedy but a convenient eraser.

Air pollution: the other front in the same war

While forests burn in the north and west, the air above Iran’s cities is turning into a lethal mix of dust, exhaust and industrial smoke.

In November 2025, deputy health minister Alireza Raeisi said air pollution caused 58,975 deaths in the previous Iranian year — 161 deaths per day, about seven every hour. Other official or semi-official figures over the past two years include:

  • Around 50,000 deaths per year from air pollution nationally, according to the health ministry and Tehran Times.

  • About 7,000 annual deaths in Tehran alone, with the capital recording roughly 130 days of “unhealthy” air in just 11 months.

  • A scientific review in 2025 showing mortality rates of 50–86 deaths per 100,000 people in some Iranian cities due to ambient particulate matter (PM2.5), well above global averages.

Yet state responses are mostly limited to short-term shutdowns: closing schools and offices for a couple of days, advising vulnerable groups to stay indoors.

Mazut: burning the worst fuel at the worst time

One of the most contentious issues is the use of mazut — a low-grade heavy fuel oil — in power plants and some industries.

In late 2024 and early 2025, reports by international and even state media documented renewed mazut burning in major power plants due to gas shortages and cold weather, even as city air quality plunged.

The IRGC-run news agency Fars has reported that mazut consumption in power plants at times exceeded 20 million liters per day, breaking previous records because of gas shortfalls.

A World Bank-linked study and Iranian economists estimate that air pollution costs Iran between $2–16 billion per year, roughly 2–2.5% of GDP, driven largely by healthcare costs and lost productivity.

In theory, authorities alternate between burning mazut and imposing blackouts. In practice, they often do both, producing a double crisis of smog and energy shortages that fuels public anger.

Wildfire smoke on top of smog

Global research in the last few years has shown that wildfire particles are especially harmful, with PM2.5 from fires associated with higher mortality and hospital admissions than similar levels from traffic or industry.

Iran’s worst wildfires — whether in the Hyrcanian forests of Mazandaran and Gilan or in the oak forests of the Zagros and Kurdistan — often occur near populated valleys already struggling with pollution and dust.

When a Hyrcanian hillside burns for three weeks, it is not just trees that are lost:

  • The immediate smoke plume adds fine particles, black carbon and organic compounds to already unhealthy air in nearby towns.

  • Over time, the loss of forest cover increases erosion and dust production, worsening the PM problem downwind.

A state that tolerates tens of thousands of air-pollution deaths each year, in other words, is unlikely to treat wildfire smoke as a public-health emergency either. It is the same government that has repeatedly harassed, arrested, and even imprisoned independent environmentalists — from wildlife researchers to local forest monitors — treating scientific fieldwork as a security threat. By criminalizing those who document ecological damage, the regime removes exactly the eyes and expertise that could hold it accountable.

Iran’s lungs, and who is breathing

The Hyrcanian fires of autumn 2025 turned a technical problem — a blaze on a forested slope — into a national symbol. The ancient forests burned; officials downplayed and delayed; volunteers were injured; foreign aircraft were invited only when the flames threatened to become an international embarrassment.

At the same time, the regime’s own health ministry quietly acknowledged that air pollution now kills more Iranians each year than many wars, earthquakes and epidemics combined.

When you put these crises together, a pattern appears:

  • Forests that could help clean the air are neglected, burned, and in some cases converted into private assets.

  • Power plants burn some of the dirtiest fuels available, even as cities shut down under smog.

  • Budgets for helicopters disappear; budgets for repression do not.

  • Environmentalists are handcuffed; land-grabbers and polluters walk free.

Iran’s “lungs” are not failing on their own. They are being used — as a source of rent, as a dumping ground for bad policy, and as a pressure valve that can be released, for a few days at a time, by shutting schools and blaming the weather.

For Iranians living under smoke and smog, the question is no longer whether these are environmental problems. They are political problems, with political authors — and, eventually, they will demand political answers.

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