Fires that erupted in Ukraine’s eastern Luhansk and Kharkiv oblasts on Sept. 2 and quickly spread throughout the area have caused severe damage, destroying an entire village and dozens of buildings. One person is known to have been killed by the flames.
As of Sept. 3, most of the fire centers have been liquidated, and the firefighters continue to extinguish the rest.
However, because the weather in eastern Ukraine is forecasted to be dry and windy for the next several days, there is still a serious risk that the fire could spread.
According to the State Emergency Service, the situation is especially dangerous because the Luhansk Oblast fires broke out in the so-called gray zone of the Donbas war, an area between Ukrainian and Russian-backed forces’ lines, where explosive objects may be located.
The State Emergency Service reported that dry grass and reeds caught on fire in one of the villages of Luhansk Oblast on Sept. 2. Soon the fire spread throughout an 80-hectare area nearby.
Later that same day, Kharkiv Oblast Governor Oleksiy Kucher said that the fires appeared in three separate spots in his oblast.
By the evening of Sept. 2, the fires had spread to over 1,200 hectares in Luhansk Oblast and 500 hectares in Kharkiv Oblast.
A firefighter extinguishes wildfire in Luhansk Obalst on Sept. 3, 2020. (The State Emergency Service of Ukraine)
The State Emergency Service hasn’t published an explanation of what might have caused the fires. However, it noted that the most frequent causes of such fires every year are the burning of dry grass and careless handling of fire by citizens during recreation and agricultural work.
The dry and windy weather contributed to the fires’ rapid spread.
“As a result, significant material and environmental damage was caused,” the State Emergency Service wrote on Facebook on Sept. 2.
According to the Presidential Office, one of the possible causes was a fire at a landfill, which later spread to a forest area. However, the office didn’t mention where that landfill is located.
To tame the fires in the east, the State Emergency Service, along with the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Armed Forces, called up hundreds of people and dozens of vehicles, including fire trains.
President Volodymyr Zelensky held an emergency meeting in his office on Sept. 2 and called on the rescuers to act fast. He also said that the government should allocate funds to compensate for the damage people had suffered.
As of Sept. 3, one person has died in the fire in Luhansk Oblast, while an entire village in Kharkiv Oblast has been destroyed.
According to Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, who is coordinating the firefighting efforts in Kharkiv Oblast, at least 22 houses have been damaged and 33 people had to flee their homes.
Earlier in July, wildfires in Luhansk Oblast killed five people and destroyed over 100 houses.
In April, a fire erupted in Kyiv Oblast near the Chornobyl exclusion zone. Together with wildfires in Zhytomyr Oblast, it covered Kyiv in smoke and polluted its air.
