Anchor: Firefighters extinguished the major flames of the country’s largest-ever wildfires in North Gyeongsang Province on Friday, 149 hours after the Uiseong fire broke out last Saturday. The brief rainfall late Thursday likely helped accelerate firefighting efforts.
Choi You Sun reports.

Report: The Korea Forest Service announced on Friday that, after 149 hours, firefighting authorities managed to put out the major flames in the nation's largest-ever wildfires that engulfed five cities and counties in North Gyeongsang Province.

The fires, which initially started at two separate hills in North Gyeongsang’s Uiseong County at around 11:25 a.m. last Saturday, rapidly spread amid strong winds and dry conditions at a record high speed at one point of eight-point-two kilometers per hour.

Efforts to contain the fires had failed to make much progress earlier in the week.

Rain showers on Thursday that fell in the affected regions of Uiseong, Andong, Cheongsong Yeongyang and Yeongdeok, albeit of up to only three millimeters, helped turn the tide.

Still, the size of land in ruins is equivalent to about 63-thousand-245 football fields, or 156 times Seoul's Yeouido area.

Twenty-four people in the North Gyeongsang region alone lost their lives in the fire, over two-thousand-400 homes and other buildings burned down and more than six-thousand-300 forced to evacuate from their dwellings.

Major flames of the wildfires in Hadong, a county in the neighboring South Gyeongsang Province, were also put out Friday morning, with authorities focusing on prevention of a new spark at Mount Jiri and other areas amid strong winds.

The South Gyeongsang wildfires, which broke out last Friday in Sancheong County, have killed four people, and displaced more than one-thousand-600 others.
Choi You Sun, KBS World Radio News.