Hundreds of firefighters continue to battle embers

Hundreds of firefighters were still on duty on Friday against the forest fire that broke out in Saxon Switzerland more than a week ago. As on the previous day, around 600 firefighters are expected to be deployed again, said a spokeswoman for the Saxon Switzerland-Eastern Ore Mountains district in the morning. The ground forces were increased to this number on Thursday.

The situation remains tense and continues to require the full extent of all emergency forces, the district said. Ground forces, as well as firefighting helicopters, continued to be busy holding down pockets of embers and isolated fires that had been fueled by the heat.

On Thursday, according to the district, an additional two kilometers of hose lines were laid in order to be able to fight the fire in the higher regions of the national park.

The forest fire area remained limited to the already affected areas and still affected an area of about 150 hectares. Residential areas were therefore still not threatened, evacuations ruled out the district.

The firefighting operation had entered its second week on Monday. The fire had started on July 24 in the Czech national park Bohemian Switzerland and then spread to German territory.

Image by Sergio Pavlishko