House fire spreads to forest in Jeongseon, contained within 2.5 hours

A fire that started at a detached house in Jeongseon, Gangwon Province, spread to a nearby hillside forest before the main blaze was brought under control in about two and a half hours.

According to Yonhap, the fire broke out at around 1:15 p.m. Saturday at a house in Deogam-ri, Imgye-myeon, Jeongseon-gun, and quickly spread to the surrounding forest.

Fire and forestry authorities deployed six helicopters, 23 pieces of firefighting equipment and about 100 personnel, extinguishing the main fire at around 3:50 p.m. Crews are currently working to mop up remaining embers.

The fire completely destroyed one abandoned house and is estimated to have burned approximately 0.5 hectares of forest.

Authorities plan to investigate the exact cause of the fire and the full extent of the damage once the mop-up operation is complete.

Meanwhile, the Korea Forest Service estimates that wildfire damage over the past decade reached about 9 trillion won ($6.74 billion), of which 5.75 trillion won — representing 63.9 percent — was attributed to the estimated loss of forests' public ecological value. Last year, public ecological losses accounted for 4.49 trillion won, or 66.7 percent, of total wildfire damage of 6.72 trillion won.