Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal and other state emergency officials urgently flew to Luhansk Oblast on Oct. 2 to coordinate the putting down of massive forest fires in the region.
As of Oct. 2, the natural disaster killed 11 people and destroyed 250 buildings covering a total area of 13,000 hectares – the size of over 18,000 soccer fields. 17 people were hospitalized due to either receiving burns or carbon monoxide poisoning.
“Now the most important thing is to help people as fast as possible,” wrote Shmyhal on his Twitter channel.
With gusts of up to 40 kilometers per hour as well as dry weather, over 2,500 rescuers and firefighters are currently operating to stop the fierce fires by various means, including with two water-dropping helicopters and two planes. So far, nearly 80% of a total of 146 hotbeds of wildfires were liquidated, according to the Luhansk Regional State Administration.
The number of people evacuated from the fire’s epicenter ranges from 150 — according to reports by the State Emergency Service — to nearly 1,000, according to reports by Ukraine’s military.
The Ukrainian miliater claims that fires were caused by “deliberate armed provocations by the Russian occupation forces,” saying that the worst fires are along the line of separation between the Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed forces.
“By using tracer bullets (which contain flammable materials), the enemy set dry grass on fire in various parts of Luhansk Oblast,” Ukraine’s military reported on Sept. 30.
Police have initiated seven criminal proceedings for fire safety violations. In addition, the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine started it’s own investigation looking at four possible versions of what might have caused the fires – deliberate arson, shelling of militants, spontaneous ignition due to weather conditions, and careless handling of fire.
While it is still not clear what the total damage is as a result of the fires, Shmyhal said that the government will allocate funds from the reserve fund of the state budget to “help the victims and overcome the consequences.”
