Wildfires in western Japan damage homes, force residents to evacuate in at least 2 areas
TOKYO (AP) — Wildfires have hit several regions in western Japan, injuring at least two people, forcing dozens of residents to evacuate and damaging a number of homes as hundreds of firefighters battled the widening blazes in the mountainous areas.
The fires in the western towns of Okayama, Imabari and Aso broke out Sunday, quickly burning hundreds of hectares (acres).
Six homes have been damaged in city of Okayama, where a fire started on Mount Kaigara and burned 250 hectares (600 acres) of the forest. In Imabari, in the Ehime prefecture on the main island of Shikoku, the fire left a firefighter slightly injured.
Firefighters and defense helicopters sprayed water but the blazes in the two prefectures had not been extinguished as of Monday afternoon.
Experts blamed dry weather and dried-up fallen leaves on the ground in the forest as likely causes of the wildfires in Okayama and Imabari.
A smaller fire was detected in the mountainous village of Aso in the Kumamoto prefecture on the southern main island of Kyushu earlier Sunday, but it was extinguished early Monday, according to the Fire and Disaster Management Agency. One person was injured slightly. Local media said the fire started while residents were burning trash.
The fires came just weeks after extensive wildfires in the northern Japanese city of Ofunato left one person dead and damaged more than 200 houses and other buildings as the blaze burned 2,900 hectares (7,170 acres), nearly one-tenth of the land in the city.
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