TOKYO: Firefighters battled Japan’s worst wildfire in fifty years on Tuesday, forcing the evacuation of about 4,000 local people and resulting in one fatality.
Five days after the fire started due to record-low rainfall, overhead television imagery revealed white smoke rising from a wooded area surrounding the northern city of Ofunato.
As global temperatures rise due to climate change, the fire also comes after Japan had its warmest summer ever last year.
According to the fire and disaster management service, as of Tuesday morning, the blaze had spread to an area of around 2,600 hectares (6,400 acres), which is more than seven times the size of Central Park in New York.
This makes it the biggest wildfire in Japan since the 2,700-hectare Kushiro fire in northern Hokkaido island in 1975.
