Fire Closes Afghan Border Post Again

August 16, 2024

A huge fire at an Iran-Afghan border post has destroyed more than 500 fuel tanker trucks and killed at least one Afghan driver. The August 5 fire at the Dogharoun border station on Iran’s side of the border is a near duplicate of the fire in February 2021 at the Islam Qala border post, which is the Afghan counterpart located a few miles east of Dogharoun.

That massive fire Fire closes Afghan border post again and assorted explosions also erupted in a tanker truck sitting at the border. That fire closed the border completely for five days.

The two border posts are on the highway that links Mashhad in Iran with Herat in Afghanistan and is the biggest and busiest border crossing between the two countries. The closure is particularly significant as Afghanistan heavily depends on Iranian fuel deliveries via tanker trucks for its survival.

Afghanistan announced many months ago that it had stopped all imports of Iranian fuel. That was not true. However, the Afghans have rejected many tanker trucks, charging that the fuel is contaminated, and has forced the trucks to return to Iran fully loaded. Iranian and Afghan officials stressed that the August fire and destruction of property was not foul play by third-party actors but an electrical fire from one of the poorly maintained trucks.

 Fire brigades from nearby cities were dispatched to the scene to extinguish the fire. Firefighters in the area said the blaze was contained after two hours but flared up again after a short while for unknown reasons, forcing firefighters to return to the scene.