Nearly 1,000 Hectares Of Land Destroyed By Hortobágy Wildfire

  • 4 Aug 2017 11:00 AM
Nearly 1,000 Hectares Of Land Destroyed By Hortobágy Wildfire
A wildfire that destroyed nearly a thousand hectares of land in the Hortobágy National Park in eastern Hungary was put out by fire crews, the deputy spokesman for the national disaster management authority said. Dániel Mukics told MTI that fire crews were taking precautionary measures to prevent further wildfires.

Over 80 firefighters and two military water-dropping helicopters were involved in putting out the flames, Erika Szepesi, deputy spokeswoman for Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok County’s disaster management authority, said earlier.

The flames started spreading after an area of undergrowth caught fire on Thursday, Mukics said. Around 600 hectares of vegetation was destroyed in the reedy, grassy areas by the early hours of Friday.

Fighting the fires was made more challenging by much of the area that was burning being swampy wetlands, making some of them impossible to access, Mukics said.

The fires did not threaten inhabited areas.

Republished with permission of Hungary Matters, MTI’s daily newsletter.

MTI photo: Czeglédi Zsolt

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