site.btaFirefighters Battle with Growing Number of Blazes

A total of 145 fires, domestic as well as wildland blazes, broke out in Bulgaria on Thursday, Alexandar Dzhartov, Head of the General Directorate for Fire Safety and Civil Protection, said on Nova TV. The day before, firefighters extinguished 279 blazes, Dzhartov added.

A wildfire near the villages of Levunovo and Damyanitsa, not far from the southwestern town of Sandanski, was largely contained after a crew started battling with it at 5 p.m. on Thursday, but it affected a timber processing enterprise, which caused complications, he said.

The whole southern part of Bulgaria is under threat from fires (real or possible), as the situation is compounded by strong winds, Dzhartov said. According to him, it was the stormy wind, with occasional galeforce gusts, that sparked many large fires on Wednesday. The wind broke power lines and caused short circuit incidents, from which plants caught fire. The expert estimated that half of the fires were due to natural causes and the other half were caused by human activity.

The number of fires is larger now than it was this time last year. The BG Alert system was set off three times – by the regional governors of Plovdiv, Pazardzhik and Sliven, all in the south of the country.