North Macedonia is facing nine active fires, including new blazes in Ohrid and Skopje, as reported on Saturday by Stojance Angelov, Director of the Crisis Management Center.
A large fire has spread in the Ohrid municipality, in the village of Kosel, and is threatening to spread to a pine forest. Fires have also broken out in the Skopje area, in the Zelenikovo municipality, and near the village of Ljubanci.
Angelov reported that the largest fire is in the Osogovo Mountains, in inaccessible terrain, which has been active for several days. Consequently, authorities have decided to deploy eight helicopters—three Macedonian, one Serbian, two Hungarian, one Slovenian, and one Czech—to extinguish it.
The Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs announced that its helicopter, an Airbus H215 Super Puma with a three-ton water capacity, along with six members of the Helicopter Unit and one member of the Emergency Sector, has been sent to North Macedonia to assist in fire suppression.
Angelov also mentioned that the fire in the Makedonski Brod municipality, in the Tazhevo and Breznica villages, has been ongoing for several days in difficult-to-access terrain. On Saturday, a police helicopter and a team from Hungary with 46 firefighters and special vehicles were dispatched to the area.
The fire in Plasnica has been brought under control, and efforts are being made to extinguish it, as well as the forest fire in Pehchevo.
Angelov stated that North Macedonia has experienced a record number of fires this summer, with 620 fires reported in July alone, of which 611 have been extinguished.
“The record was on July 29, when we had 66 active fires in one day,” Angelov said.
