Rescuers of East-Viru region busy with extensive landscape fires

Landscape fire. Photo: Elmo Riig

In connection with several large-scale landscape fires in East-Viru County in northeastern Estonia, a large part of the rescue resources of the Viru region is busy extinguishing them on Thursday.

A quick response for saving lives is guaranteed from the Narva and Johvi crews, but in other parts of East-Viru County, the arrival of help may be delayed. Nevertheless, all calls will be serviced.

At 1:53 p.m., the Emergency Response Center was notified about a landscape fire in the area of Kaevuri Street in the industrial town of Kohtla-Jarve. Around 30 minutes later, at 2:24 p.m., rescuers were called to Kohtla forest district in Aa village, the rural municipality of Luganuse, where an extensive grassfire and landscape fire had broken out.

At 4:21 p.m., another call was made to the Kohtla forest district. At the same time, smaller fires broke out in the region, which is why a large part of the rescue resources of the Viru region is still busy with extinguishing works.

In addition to the teams of professional crews, a number of volunteer rescuers from East-Viru and West-Viru counties are involved in the rescue work.

Such a situation, where a large part of the region's rescue resources is busy extinguishing simultaneous wildfires, is certainly not usual. Unfortunately, most wildfires start from human negligence or even maliciousness.

The rescuers point out that people have to be extremely careful with open fire in dry nature. Due to the continuation of dry and warm weather, the fire hazard in forests and in the countryside is increasing very quickly.