SEOUL– Multiple wildfires have charred east coastal mountain areas the size of more than 30,000 soccer fields over the past five days, but firefighting efforts have made slow headway hampered by thick smoke and fickle winds, officials said Tuesday.
Firefighting officials said they brace for a long-term battle as numerous wildfires are simultaneously scattered over an extensive area and the wind direction changed unfavorably from the afternoon.
They had initially aimed to extinguish the main fires on Monday but were disturbed by thick smoke, sea fog and other unfavorable weather conditions.
The wildfires spurred by high winds amid dry conditions have burned an estimated 21,772 hectares of woodland, the size of 30,493 soccer fields, along the east coastal areas as of 6 a.m. Tuesday, according to the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasure Headquarters.
In terms of damaged areas, the ongoing blaze is close to the nation’s largest wildfires on record, which burned 23,794 hectares of east coast mountains in 2000.
Uljin, a North Gyeongsang county 330 kilometers southeast of Seoul, was hardest hit with 16,913 hectares burned, followed by three Gangwon Province cities — Donghae (2,100 hectares), Gangneung (1,900 hectares) and Samcheok (772 hectares), the agency said.
As of Monday night, no casualties had been reported, but 570 facilities and homes had been damaged and 338 people in 220 households had been displaced, it added.
The fire extinguishing rates reached 50 percent in the Uljin and Samcheok areas, and 90 percent in the Gangneung and Donghae areas, the agency said, noting about 3,000 firefighting personnel and about 100 helicopters were mobilized during the day.
In Yeongweol, another Gangwon district hit by wildfires, the main fires were extinguished Tuesday morning after over 93 hours of firefighting operations, authorities said, adding 80 hectares of forest were burned there.
“Wildfires on the east coast in 2000 lasted for 10 days and were extinguished with rain on the last day,” said Choi Byeong-am, head of the Korea Forest Service (KFS), in a news conference.
“It is difficult to predict when the main fires will be put out but we’ll do everything we can to extinguish the main fires before the upcoming rainfall forecast for Sunday,” he said.
The authorities are also concentrating their efforts on protecting Uljin’s Geumgang Pine Tree colony, a massive 2,247-hectare forest of about 80,000 lush pine trees more than 200 years old.
The forest named after Mount Geumgang, a scenic mountain now located in North Korea, also features some 1,600 pine trees with a diameter of more than 60 centimeters and is considered an important national resource. Geumgang pine trees known for straightness, few cracks and beauty have been mainly used for the restoration of various cultural properties.
“Flames have slightly gone over the ridge of the Geumgang Pine Tree colony, but all-out efforts are under way to block their spread into the forest. So far, there has been no damage to the colony,” Choi said.
The blaze began Friday morning in Uljin and rapidly spread north to Samcheok in the afternoon, driven by strong winds whose speed reached nearly 30 meters per second.
Police and the KFS are speeding up their investigations into the exact cause of the wildfires in Uljin without ruling out the possibility of the fires being started by cigarette butts from motorists.
The government has designated Uljin, Samcheok, Gangneung and Donghae, ravaged by the massive wildfires, as a special disaster zone and vowed swift support for the victims.
Source: Yonhap News Agency