Key points
- Burned area expands to 1,800 hectares
- Nearly 1,700 firefighters join efforts
- Around 2,000 people fled affected areas
ISLAMABAD: Firefighters backed by air support were struggling to put out a raging wildfire in northeastern Japan that is continuing to spread, local media reported on Sunday.
Japan’s public broadcaster NHK reported that the burned area has expanded to approximately 1,800 hectares due to the raging wildfire in Ofunato city of Iwate prefecture despite days of air and ground operations.
The country’s disaster management agency asked more fire departments across the country to join the battle against the fire, according to the Anadolu news agency.
Nearly 1,700 firefighters from around 450 departments across the country have already joined the effort to control the blaze, which has spread over five days since Wednesday.
Displaced
AFP reported that thousands of people evacuated from parts of northern Japan as the country’s largest wildfire in three decades raged unabated Sunday after killing at least one person.
Around 2,000 people fled areas around the northern Japan city of Ofunato to stay with friends or relatives, while more than 1,200 evacuated to shelters, according to officials.
Size of fire
“We’re still examining the size of the affected area, but it is the biggest since the 1992 wildfire” in Kushiro, Hokkaido, a disaster management agency spokesman told AFP Saturday.
Some reports estimated the fire had spread over 1,800 hectares.
Aerial footage by NHK showed columns of white smoke billowing, four days after the blaze first materialised, with military helicopters trying to douse them.
One dead
One burned body has been discovered so far, with more than 80 buildings damaged and around 1,700 firefighters mobilised from across the country.
The number of wildfires has declined since the peak in the 1970s, according to government data, but there were about 1,300 across Japan in 2023 — concentrated in the February to April period when the air dries and winds pick up.
