In the dry weather and strong winds, wildfires have occurred one after another in various parts of Gyeongsangbuk-do.
Today (26th) around 3:16 pm, a fire broke out in the mountain behind Pyeongcheon-ri, Mungyeong-eup, Mungyeong-si and spread with strong winds.
The forestry authorities issued a 'wildfire stage 1' in which all personnel from the fire department in charge were dispatched, and 15 helicopters were put in to extinguish the fire, but the fire could not be extinguished.
The forest fire damage area is estimated to be about 20 hectares, the forestry authorities said.
As the sun went down, the forest authorities mobilized 7 firefighting vehicles and 399 firefighters to switch to a nighttime forest fire response system.
The fire is located on the southeastern slope of the Baekdudaegan River.
A wind of 7 m/s is blowing at the site.
An official from the Korea Forest Service said, "It is dry and strong winds make it difficult to extinguish."
Also, around 4:38 pm, a forest fire occurred in Naeseong-ri, Bonghwa-eup, Bonghwa-gun, and the fire was extinguished in 40 minutes.
0.3 hectares of forest were burned by this fire.
Bonghwa-gun is monitoring the back lights all night to prevent the embers from igniting.
At about 1:09 pm earlier than this, a fire broke out in the mountain behind a certain military base in Gaeun-dong, Sangju, burning 0.1 ha of forest and it was extinguished in 1 hour and 15 minutes.
In addition, there were wildfires in Naegok-ri, Daegaya-eup, Goryeong-gun, and Maenam-ri, Yongseong-myeon, Gyeongsan-si, etc., but they did not spread as large fires.
(Photo = provided by the Korea Forest Service, Yonhap News)