Burning for days, the flames in southeastern South Korea at one point threatened UNESCO-listed Hahoe Village and Byeongsanseowon
South Korean firefighters dispatched to Juwangsan National Park kept an all-night watch into Thursday, as the flames that have been burning the country's mid-section for five days and nights reached within 4 kilometers of the historic temple of Daejeonsa at one point, before receding as of Thursday morning.
The series of gargantuan wildfires, which started over the weekend, have destroyed multiple national treasures and historical sites, razing 36,000 hectares of forest and killing at least 26 people.
Eighty-five employees of the Korea National Park Service have been dispatched to protect the temple in Cheongsong-gun, North Gyeongsang Province. The fire authorities and the park service officials moving the relicts to safe locations and removing fire hazards and trees next to the temple.
The blaze has halted its progress toward the temple, founded more than 1,000 years ago, but the officials are still on full alert for potential development in the ongoing disaster.
Battle to protect traditional village, Confucian academy
Firefighting authorities have also been dispatched to the UNESCO World Heritage site of Hahoe Village in Andong-gun. Flames came within 10 kilometers of the village, which is known for its preservation of Korea's traditional culture and buildings, many of which are made of wood and thatch.
According to officials, 20 firetrucks and 130 firefighters had been mobilized at one point to protect the heritage site, with officials pouring water on the haystacks and thatched roofs of traditional buildings.
Some 150 residents of the village received multiple evacuation orders, although several have stayed to watch over the fires.
Wildfires had spread to within 3 kilometers of the Byeongsanseowon Confucian Academy, also in Andong, Wednesday night. But the wind blew the flames away from the academy and the fire in the area has been receding as of Thursday morning.
The Byeongsanseowon is also a UNESCO World Heritage site, being one of the Confucian academies inscribed in 2019.
As in case of Daejeonsa, the authorities are keeping watch over the historical sites in the Andong-gun in case the flames start approaching them again. They are hoping to spare the historic buildings from the fate of Gounsa — a temple founded in 681 AD — which was destroyed in the fires in nearby Uiseong-gun.
By area affected, the massive fires in five regions further north, in the northern part of North Gyeongsang Province, have been the most damaging of the recent string of wildfires. Authorities estimated that the fires there have been 44.3 percent contained as of Thursday morning.
The fire in Andong-gun is currently 52 percent contained while flames in Cheongsong-gun are 77 percent contained.
minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com
