Mount Apo Reopened in September. With a Very Strong El Niño Due to Peak by December, the 2024 Fire Closure Is the Precedent to Watch

Open since September 1

DENR Davao announced the 2026 off season in a Facebook post on June 1: "All trekking and camping activities are hereby prohibited until the closure is lifted." The ban covered every open trail on the Davao Region and Soccsksargen sides of the park and ran through August 31. It rests on the park management board's En Banc Resolution 08 of 2021, and the yearly rest period has been enforced since 2022. Activities resume automatically when it ends, so there was no formal reopening.

The closure covered the access trails from Kidapawan City, Makilala and Magpet in Cotabato and from Digos City, Bansalan and Santa Cruz in Davao del Sur. On the Davao side the main routes are the Santa Cruz trail from Barangay Baruring, the Kapatagan trail from Sitio Culan in Digos City and the Bansalan trail from Sitio Balutakay, which hiking guides describe as the most physically demanding of the entry points.

The 2024 precedent

The last time an El Niño coincided with the climbing season, the park closed. The management board suspended all trekking from March 20 to March 30, 2024, citing the risk of grass fires in the dry spell. On March 28 DENR Davao announced that after "careful evaluation" the board had extended the closure of all trails and access points to April 30. "This measure is in response to the ongoing El Niño phenomenon, which has led to a prolonged dry spell and increased the risk of wildfires, threatening the park's diverse ecosystems and the safety of visitors," the office wrote, and asked trekkers to contact their organizers to reschedule.

The fear behind that decision is the March 2016 fire, which burned about 115 hectares of forest and grassland. It started near the summit, believed to have been set off by trekkers who left a camp fire or a butane canister, and ran down toward Lake Venado, Kidapawan City and the Santa Cruz side of the mountain before fire lines stopped it. The management board has cited that fire every time it has closed the mountain for dry weather since.

What is different this year

PAGASA's September 23 advisory expects the current strong El Niño to become very strong before the end of 2026 and to last into the first half of 2027. Its regional outlook gives the Davao Region and Soccsksargen 26 to 31 dry days a month from December through March, which is the window in which the 2024 closure fell. The Department of Agriculture's regional office has already logged crop losses from moisture stress in Matanao and Bansalan in Davao del Sur, the latter being one of the mountain's trailhead towns.

Mindanao Live covered Davao City's water and disaster fund preparations on Thursday. For the mountain, the equivalent decision belongs to the Protected Area Management Board, the park's policy body, which the DENR regional offices for Davao and Soccsksargen convene with the local governments around the park. As of October 15 none of the regional outlets Mindanao Live reviewed had reported a board meeting on fire risk or any proposed closure. In 2024 the first announcement came less than a week before the closure began.

Who fights a fire on the mountain

Paul Rodney Arbiol, the management board's deputy spokesperson, laid out the response plan during the 2024 dry spell. Fire lines on the mountain were cut in 2016 by the Bureau of Fire Protection, forest rangers and members of the indigenous communities working together, and that remains the model. Most of the fire bureau's personnel and equipment for the park are stationed in Bansalan, Davao del Sur. The local government nearest a fire alerts the indigenous communities, and the municipal disaster offices stand by to help. The Armed Forces and the local disaster councils are the other partners.

Arbiol also said the board had never documented a natural fire on the mountain in recent years, that every recorded fire had a human cause, and that farm burning in the communities around the park is a red flag in a long dry spell. He noted that the DENR office for Davao del Sur has only a handful of staff, which is why the response depends on the local governments.

The park and the geopark bid

Mount Apo Natural Park was declared a protected area under Republic Act 7586 on June 1, 1992 and is one of the ASEAN Heritage Parks. DENR counts about 800 plant species, 272 bird species and 54 mammal species inside it, including the Philippine Eagle. The park is also the subject of a UNESCO Global Geopark application. DENR offices in Davao and Soccsksargen ran a simulation of the assessment on April 30, and the Mindanao Times reported on June 1 that UNESCO evaluators were scheduled to visit both regions in August. Neither office has announced the result.