On Saturday, tens of thousands of South Korean firefighters and troops battled a massive wildfire that ripped through an eastern coastal area, threatening a nuclear power plant and a liquefied natural gas plant.
The fire started on a mountain in the beach town of Uljin on Friday morning and has spread across more than 6,000 hectares (14,800 acres) to the neighboring city of Samcheok, destroying at least 159 homes and 46 other structures and forcing more than 6,200 residents to flee.
Images from Uljin and Samcheok showed enormous expanses of white and gray smoke billowing from the country’s eastern coast’s steep slopes, as well as firefighters using water hoses in the thick, smoky air.
There were no reports of injuries or deaths at the time. The cause of the fire, which spread quickly due to strong winds and dry circumstances, was being investigated by officials, according to South Korea’s Ministry of Interior and Safety.
Around 7,000 firefighters, troops, and public personnel, as well as 65 helicopters and 513 vehicles, had been deployed as of Saturday afternoon to put out the fire, which had reached Samcheok and was now spreading southward toward Uljin due to the wind.
Korea Forest Service Minister Choi Byeong-am told reporters in Uljin that they planned to put out the fire by sundown.
Hundreds of firemen battled through the night to keep the fire from spreading to an LNG production facility in Samcheok, just north of Uljin.
As the fire reached the perimeter of a beachfront nuclear power plant in Uljin on Friday afternoon, President Moon Jae-in issued an alert, prompting the operator to decrease operations to 50% and cut off certain electricity connections as a precaution.
Hundreds of firefighters were dispatched to the factory to put out the fire before it spread northward toward Samcheok.
