Wildfires that scorched forests in northern Japan, reportedly the second biggest in over 30 years, have been brought under control after 11 days, officials have said.<\/p>\n
Hundreds of firefighters and more than 1,000 military personnel had battled the blazes since last month, as they burned around 1,600 hectares across the mountainous Iwate region.<\/p>\n
The affected area is almost five times the size of New York City’s Central Park.<\/p>\n
At least eight buildings were damaged and two people suffered minor injuries, according to the Fire and Disaster Management Agency.<\/p>\n
Thousands of people were evacuated as fires picked up.<\/p>\n
Otsuchi town mayor Kozo Hirano told reporters that he had been “informed that… the fire had been brought under control” after visiting the area with fire officials.<\/p>\n
He credited aerial and ground firefighting operations as well as heavy rainfall, for containing the flames.<\/p>\n
But Hirano said authorities would remain vigilant as there was a possibility that smouldering embers remain.<\/p>\n
Kyodo News described the blaze as Japan’s second-largest wildfire in over 30 years.<\/p>\n
Increasingly dry winters have raised the risk of wildfires.<\/p>\n
Last year, Iwate suffered a separate wildfire that burned 2,600 hectares, the largest in Japan since 1975, when 2,700 hectares were scorched by fire in Kushiro, on the northern island of Hokkaido.<\/p>\n
Scientists have long warned that climate change caused by mankind’s burning of fossil fuels will make periods of drought more intense and longer-lasting, creating the ideal conditions for wildfires.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wildfires that scorched forests in northern Japan, reportedly the second biggest in over 30 years, have been brought…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":429915,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[246,61,60,82],"class_list":["post-429914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=429914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429914\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/429915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=429914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=429914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=429914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}