South Korea Faces Worst Wildfires Amid Climate Crisis
- Pixabay.
The last major wildfire, in April 2020, scorched 23,913 hectares across the east coast.
“The wildfire is spreading rapidly,” Lee said. “The forest damage has reached 35,810 hectares, already exceeding the area affected by the 2000 east coast wildfire, previously the largest on record, by more than 10,000 hectares.”
The fatalities include a pilot whose helicopter crashed during efforts to contain a fire and four firefighters and other workers who died after being trapped by fast-moving flames driven by strong winds.
Authorities have not disclosed details of the civilian dead, except that they are mainly in their 60s and 70s.
They suspect human error caused several of the wildfires that began last Friday, including cases where people started fires while clearing overgrown grass from family tombs or with sparks during welding work.
Last year was South Korea’s hottest year on record, with the Korea Meteorological Administration saying that the average annual temperature was 14.5C – two degrees higher than the preceding 30-year average of 12.5C.
Yeh Sang-Wook, professor of climatology at Hanyang University in Seoul, said the lack of rainfall had dried out the land “creating favourable conditions for wildfires”.
“This can be seen as one of the fundamental causes,” he said. “We can’t say that it’s only due to climate change, but climate change is directly [and] indirectly affecting the changes we are experiencing now. This is a simple fact.”
The blazes were threatening two Unesco world heritage sites – Hahoe Village and the Byeongsan Confucian academy – in Andong city on Wednesday, a city official said, as authorities sprayed fire retardants to try to protect them.
Kebakaran Hutan di Korsel (AP Photo/Son Hyung Joo)
- VoxPop.co.id/Natania Longdong
Andong and the neighbouring counties of Uiseong and Sancheong, as well as the city of Ulsan, have been hardest hit.
On Wednesday night, strong winds and smoke-filled skies forced authorities in Andong, in the south-east, to order evacuations in two villages, including Puncheon, home to the Hahoe folk village, founded around the 14th-15th century.
