Seul, South Korea-the rainy and colder temperatures helped the fire teams of South Korea while fighting against the worst forest fires of the country on Friday, since the governor of the most affected region requested to review the response to the climatic crisis that he says he worsen the disaster.
The forest fires, which have killed 28 people and raised vast stripes of land in the southeast of the last week, were contained at 85% from Friday morning, said the head of the forest service of Korea, Lim Sang-Seop, to a televised informative session. He said the authorities would launch “total efforts” to extinguish the remaining fires by bringing more helicopters and firefighters to the areas.
Furious hell has also destroyed thousands of houses, factories, vehicles and other structures, while the mountains and hills were stripped of anything but a carpet of burning ashes.
“Hazos have decreased due to rain last night, so that is favorable to ensure visibility. Also temperatures are now lower than the last days, so things are very favorable to get forest fires,” Lim said.
Firefighters, many of the 60 years, a reflection of one of the fastest populations in the world, sailed forests in yellow helmets and red protective suits, spraying suppressors in flames that blinked near their feet. The helicopters threw cubes of water on hills that shone in red at night.
The residents struck into temporary shelters in places like schools and gyms, but the fire dragged dangerously close to some of them as well. A video shared by an evacuo shows fires that approach a school football field under a smoke -drowned sky.
“I kept crying this morning,” Seo Jae Tak, 79, said on Thursday in a gym in Andong City. “When I returned yesterday, the whole mountain had become ashes. It’s amazing, I can’t even express it. All I can do is cry.”
The authorities were mobilizing about 9,000 people, 125 helicopters and hundreds of other vehicles to fight forest fires, said the Government’s Disaster Response Center.
Forest fires have burned 118,265 acres of land, forced more than 30,000 people to flee their homes and wounded another 37 since last Friday. The authorities said Friday that 8,000 residents remained in temporary shelters. The fires have been driven by strong winds and dry climate.
While it is difficult to link any event with climate change, officials and experts say they are making forest fires more likely and more severe. Scientists have already warned that the atmosphere of heating worldwide is promoting increasingly extreme weather events, including forest fires, floods, droughts, hurricanes and heat waves that people are killing and causing billions of dollars in damages every year.
“We must completely review our forest fire response strategy against extreme climatic conditions,” said Lee Cheol-Woo, governor of the province of North Gyeongsang, at a press conference.
Lee pointed out that last week has shown how forest fires, fed by dry and suction conditions, can quickly overwhelm the country’s resources. He said he would request that the government establish better evacuation guidelines, adopt more powerful fire extinguishing tools that include airplanes equipped with water cannons and adopt other approaches to improve fire extinguishing efforts during night hours.
“We don’t have the team to fight fire at night,” said Lee. “At night, fire fighting is done only with manual efforts, but with the greatest density of our forests compared to the past, it is difficult to handle with that.”
On Thursday, Lee Han-Kyung, deputy director of the Disaster Response Center, said in a meeting that forest fires showed “the reality of the climatic crisis we have experienced,” according to the Yonhap news agency.
The murdered people had most of the 60 years or more. They include a pilot whose helicopter crashed during efforts to contain a fire on Wednesday and four firefighters and other workers who died before after being trapped by flames quickly. Authorities say that older people found it difficult to evacuate quickly, but have not provided details of civilians.
In Uiseong, about 20 of the 30 structures in the Gounsa temple complex, which is said to originally built in the seventh century, they have burned. Among them were two “treasures” designated by the State: a pavilion with a view to a current dating from 1668, and a structure of the Joseon dynasty built in 1904 to mark the longevity of a king.
