Gangwon and East Coast Wildfire Disaster National Crisis Alert Raised to 'Interest'

In May, forestry authorities conducted wildfire suppression operations by helicopter at a wildfire site in Uljin-gun, Gyeongbuk. Provided by the Korea Forest Service

[Asia Economy (Daejeon) Reporter Jeong Il-woong] A national crisis alert for wildfire disaster at the "Interest" level has been issued for the Gangwon and East Coast areas.

The Korea Forest Service Central Wildfire Prevention Headquarters announced on the 23rd that, judging from the dry weather combined with strong winds mainly in the Gangwon East Coast region, the risk of wildfire occurrence is high, and thus a national crisis alert for wildfire disaster (Interest) has been issued.

The wildfire crisis alert was issued at 11 a.m. on the same day.

Accordingly, situation duty personnel belonging to the Wildfire Prevention Headquarters will be deployed and standby on site. In addition, measures such as deploying surveillance personnel to wildfire-prone areas including restricted mountain entry zones will be implemented.

Currently, 30 wildfire suppression helicopters (11 forestry, 15 leased, 4 firefighting) are deployed in the Gangwon and Gyeongbuk regions.

In particular, the Central Wildfire Prevention Headquarters will additionally forward-deploy four large helicopters to the Goseong, Sokcho, Gangneung, and Samcheok areas to enable initial rapid response to wildfires.

A representative of the Central Wildfire Prevention Headquarters said, "The Gangwon East Coast region has a very high risk of wildfire occurrence due to dry air and low precipitation," and added, "We ask hikers to refrain from carrying fire sources such as lighters and matches, and to avoid burning agricultural waste or garbage near forest areas."

Meanwhile, from September until the 23rd of this month, 106 wildfires have occurred nationwide, causing damage with 23.78 hectares of forest lost (compared to 49 cases and 26.39 hectares last year).

Above all, the Korea Forest Service judges that the risk of wildfire occurrence is very high considering the recent increase in the wildfire risk index on the East Coast and the current weather advisories (dryness and strong wind warnings).

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