During yesterday, the fire above Donja Jablanica was reactivated, and firefighters and citizens have been extinguishing the fire for the tenth day.
The mayor of Jablanica, Damir Sabanovic, explains that everything will be calm in the morning, but that it will go wild during the day. Another problem is the wind that blows the fire in an unexpected direction, and both citizens and firefighters have been fighting the fire for days, Klix.ba writes.
“When it starts to go wild, people jump in the woods and fight from one place to another,” he said.
Another problem is that the Presidency of BiH did not approve the helicopter of the Armed Forces for extinguishing the fire. The Republika Srpska helicopter service is helping to put out the fire, but not enough, considering that they can only have 12 overflights.
“We are just chasing the fire like this, something goes out a bit and then when it needs to be finished, we don’t have a helicopter. That’s why the fire is going wild again,” said Sabanovic.
In previous years, there used to be bigger fires, but the situation was different because they had helicopters at their disposal. One of the situations when the helicopter was in dire need the day after the rain, however, the RS Helicopter Service had already fired the allowed number of flights at that time.
The total area covered by the fire near Jablanica is at least 550 hectares.
“Where we thought the fire could not come, by changing the direction of the wind, we got 150 new hectares of burned area near the settlement. We already have about six kilometers of straight line of fire, and the coverage has long been over 550 hectares,” said the mayor.
