<기사제목>Forest Service Chief: "Goal to Extinguish Main Fire Today... 80 Helicopters Deployed to Eungbongsan"

[Asia Economy Reporter Hwang Yoon-joo] The forestry authorities are making every effort to extinguish the main fire of the Uljin-Samcheok wildfire, which started on the 4th and has continued for nine days, by the 12th.

On this day, Choi Byung-am, the head of the Korea Forest Service, stated at a briefing held at the command center at the wildfire site in Jukbyeon-myeon, Uljin-gun, "Initially, the goal was to finish by tomorrow (the 13th), but we are aiming to bring it forward and extinguish the main fire today."

The current containment rate has increased from 80% on the 11th to 85% as of the morning of the 12th.

The forestry authorities divided Eungbongsan into three zones, deploying 80 out of 84 helicopters, and assigned 4 helicopters to mop-up operations in Sogwang-ri and Deokgu-ri. The Korea Forest Service's special firefighting team of 100 personnel, an aerial firefighting team of 60, and 200 special forces soldiers are assigned to the Eungbongsan firefighting efforts.

However, since the fire is strong, after reducing the fire intensity to some extent through helicopter firefighting, personnel will be deployed by rappelling down from the helicopters. The Korea Forest Service is also deploying 627 personnel to extinguish the remaining fire in Sogwang-ri.

As of now, the Uljin-Samcheok wildfire, which started on the 4th, has caused damage to a total of 20,647 hectares, including 18,463 hectares in Uljin and 2,184 hectares in Samcheok, according to preliminary estimates. There have been no casualties, but 754 structures, including 353 houses, were burned, and 337 residents were evacuated.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.