Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Borjomi wildfire


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   keep. addition of sources, plethora of "keep" and "keep or merge" therefore Keep (non-admin closure) ( talk→  Bwilkins / BMW   ←track ) 00:12, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Borjomi wildfire

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Frankly speaking, Wikipedia is not a news wire. The article has been totally unreferenced since August 2008 - it previously had 3 sources, 2 of which don't exist, and the remaining source does not verify a single thing within the article as it stands now. Being WP:BOLD, I used the single source that was available on the article and placed the information in Borjomi-Kharagauli National Park. This got me a "don't destroy the article" comment, in addition the reversing editor has the WP:BURDEN of sourcing this info. This is in essence a WP:FORK of an article of a piece of WP:NOT which can be covered more than suitably within the article for Borjomi-Kharagauli National Park, it's not notable enough for its own article. Russavia Dialogue 13:51, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep. One of the largest wildfires in Georgia's history destroyed 1/2 of one of the largest Eastern European national parks. The event has been extensively reported by the international media and the sources are indeed abundant.
 * Russia blamed for forest fires. BBC
 * Georgian forest burns: Russia blamed. Reuters
 * Fires Threaten Georgia's Natural Resources Conservation International
 * Georgians Blame Russia for Fires in Beloved Preserve. Washington Post
 * Burnt Georgian forest shows costs of Russia war. ABC News
 * Georgian bushfires still burning. Herald Sun
 * Turkey sends two aircrafts for extinguishing fire in Borjomi forests APA.az
 * Letter to Russian Minister of Natural Resources 19 August 2008. PAN Parks
 * The fire has also been mentioned in Moscow Times,, Guardian, Times, President of Georgia's address to the UN
 * The satellite images of the fire has been released by the United Nations here. --KoberTalk 14:17, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Merge into Borjomi-Kharagauli National Park. The fire was a noteworthy event which should be covered; it simply does not deserve to be covered in a separate article.  The fire was a part of the park's history, and the article about the park is where it belongs.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:20, January 28, 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid I did not quite get your point. If the fire was, as you said, a noteworthy event which should be covered, then it obviously deserves its own article. Otherwise, we will have to merge all "Fire" entries into the articles about their respective locations.--KoberTalk 15:57, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Georgia (country)-related deletion discussions.   -- • Gene93k (talk) 16:25, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Merge Wikipedia is not a news archive, per WP:NOT. Also, these two articles are confusing. The one on the park says "The total area of the park is 5, 3 thousand square kilometers"(sic) so I can't tell how much of it the fire affected. The reference cited from Conservation International, dated August 27 says "fires inside the national park were relatively small and have been contained" and that "the damage in and around the park was limited to about 10 hectares" but that 300 hectare (741 acres) had been damaged outside the park. This is not a lot of land, compared to other wildfires which have been in the news, such as List of wildfires. I cannot see how this wildfire would make it onto the list of notable wildfires. The smallest fires there are still well over 1000 acres and are there only because of large loss of life. Even the larger 950 hectare (2300 acre) claim by the government of Georgia would not make the list of notable wildfires, unless there were special factors such as loss of life. The fire's only claim to fame comes from accusations that it was deliberately set via Russian helicopters, or that somehow this forest is more important than other forests/parks in the world. Edison (talk) 18:05, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep. This article is about an important, notable and well sourced event. This is a good sub-article for the "Park" or the "War" articles. Note that nominating article for deletion is not the way to debate merging. Therefore all "merge" votes should be counted essentially as "keep".Biophys (talk) 21:45, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment I disagree with the interpretation that a "Merge" argument somehow really means, "No, don't merge it, leave it as is." If that odd view is correct, then my !vote would have to be "Delete" rather than "Merge." This was a really minor wildfire, orders of magnitude smaller than most on the list of important wildfires. Many AFDs end with the subject article being merged, often by nothing more than a redirect, if the important content is already in the target article. Edison (talk) 20:24, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep or merge. "Wikipedia is not a newswire" is supposed to be a phrase that stops unencyclopedic material from being entered into WP. One off non-notable events like a random burglary or minor contests for example. A massive wildfire in a national park has a lasting effect on nature in that area and it should clearly be covered. I'm not entirely sure where. Having it in the article about the park avoids inconsistencies between the two articles and puts both in context but having a separate article allows for proper categorization and it seems both articles could be reasonably well-sized. Either way, I can't see a valid reason for deletion. Disasters like wildfires, hurricanes and eartquakes are not minor news events, they have lasting effects and are thus notable. - Mgm|(talk) 23:07, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Merge into Borjomi-Kharagauli National Park. Otherwise this article will remain a permastub. Information about the fires would fit into the article about the park quite nicely as a subsection in the section about environmental concerns. Pocopocopocopoco (talk) 04:57, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep. Agree with evryword of User:Biophys. A largest wildfires in Georgia's history destroyed by the actions of Russia. Very important article. Geagea (talk) 10:27, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment and request There appears to be original research in the article, refer to Talk:Borjomi_wildfire, of course it appears to be totally POV OR. Additionally, to get the scale of this ecocide, the article lead states: "completely destroying a large part of the Borjomi-Kharagauli National Park". Later in the article, according to Georgia, "An area of 250 hectares was totally destroyed". According to the official website of the national park,, the park is 76,000 hectares in size. Now to do the math. (250 ÷ 76,000) × 100 = 0.33. This means that a total of 0.38% of the forest was lost thru this "wildfire". Rather than completely destroying a large part, it would appear to me that the fire completely destroyed an "extremely small" part of the forest. I would request for someone not connected to Eastern European topics to go thru this article as it stands now, to ensure that everything is verifiable and isn't using peacock and weasal terms such as I have pointed out, because I am afraid I am unable to editing in an NPOV fashion by some. --Russavia Dialogue 11:24, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment. I have replaced the weasel-worded "completely destroying a large part" with "destroying 250 ha". Phil Bridger (talk) 18:27, 29 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep. Firebombing this beautiful valley was a watershed event in the war, and a major media event -- for one side, a sign of brutality by the other; for other, supposedly a sign of deception by the first. ΔιγουρενΕμπρος! 12:13, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep. There are more than enough sources to show that the subject is notable, and, due to the disagreements about the causes of the fire, this is notable outside the context of the national park itself. Merging this to Borjomi-Kharagauli National Park would appear to be reflect one point of view, as would merging it to 2008 South Ossetia war, which would relect another. Of course this should be edited for NPOV - I have made a small start. The best chance for getting a neutral presentation of the facts is to keep this as a separate article. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:27, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Merge into Borjomi-Kharagauli National Park as per Ëzhiki. --Pan Miacek and his crime-fighting dog ( woof! ) 21:14, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep, if sourced I don't see why this article about an important event during this war should be deleted. We have other articles about bombings and fires. Närking (talk) 21:34, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep The serious damage to a national park is notable, and the manner in which it occured only increases this. Blood Red Sandman  (Talk)   (Contribs) 22:31, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep. Wikipedia is not a newspaper. It means that any notable disaster should be presented at wikipedia not only few days after it has occured. As for merging with national park or war pages, I think it is not appropriate: nobody object against Kursha-2 or something else. Disaster itself is notable. Also, as on August 2008 links weren't broken. Also, note, that the proposer after placing the redirect to national park hasn't added any information about the fire to the national park page just after merging, so I have resored the content.--Üñţïf̣ļëŗ ( see also: ә? Ә!) 19:05, 2 February 2009 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.