South Korea deploys helicopters to include hearth in DMZ: Seoul army

“There aren’t any reviews of injury to personnel or infrastructure on the South Korean aspect,” the nation’s Joint Chiefs of Employees added. File
| Picture Credit score: Reuters

“South Korean army deployed helicopters to include a wildfire throughout the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ), the buffer zone separating the 2 Koreas,” it mentioned on Friday (April 11, 2025).

The announcement comes after the nation suffered its deadliest wildfires in historical past final month, which claimed greater than 30 lives in its southeastern areas.

The reason for the hearth which broke out on Thursday (April 10, 2025) afternoon within the Goseong space of Gangwon Province throughout the DMZ, is at the moment unknown, the nation’s Joint Chiefs of Employees mentioned in an announcement.

“Two forest hearth extinguishing helicopters from the Korea Forest Service have been deployed to extinguish the hearth since round 06:30 right this moment (2130 GMT Thursday),” it mentioned.

“There aren’t any reviews of injury to personnel or infrastructure on the South Korean aspect,” it added.

“Our army performed a North Korea steerage broadcast to the North earlier than deploying … helicopters,” it mentioned, including that efforts to manage the forest hearth south of the border are “progressing easily”.

It comes days after South Korea’s army mentioned its troops fired warning pictures when round 10 North Korean troopers briefly crossed the closely fortified border within the DMZ.

The 2 international locations are technically nonetheless at warfare because the 1950-1953 battle led to an armistice reasonably than a peace treaty.

South Korea has been more and more affected by local weather change, and the lethal wildfires final month had been fanned by excessive winds and ultra-dry circumstances, with the southeastern areas experiencing below-average rains for months after the nation had its hottest yr on file in 2024.

With the DMZ, a four-km-wide “no man’s land” that runs the total size of the 250-km (155-mile) border, a lot of the zone is roofed in lush forest and wetlands and largely unvisited by people because it was created after the 1953 ceasefire that ended Korean Battle hostilities.