Photo: www.fotokerschi.at | panchuck
At around 2:30 p.m., the first major alarm was received by the state fire brigade command: a square baler had caught fire in a field in Pregarten (district of Freistadt). Due to the drought and the wind, the flames spread quickly. They covered a large part of the field and threatened to encroach on the adjacent forest area.
Alert level three declared
Alert level three was declared and other emergency services from the area were alerted. 13 fire brigades with more than 100 men fought against a further spread of the fire in the scorching heat. The fire has since been extinguished, officials said. At 4 p.m., ten weirs were still busy on site finally extinguishing the last embers.
Shortly after 4 p.m., the sirens sounded in the Perg district: In the Katsdorf area, twelve fire departments went out to a similar fire operation at alarm level three. Alarm level two was also declared in the municipality of Laakirchen in the Gmunden district on Sunday afternoon, and four fire brigades responded to a field fire. At Wolfern in the Steyr-Land district, nine weirs were deployed at alert level two.
Fire brigades in continuous operation
Already on Saturday, several field fires in Upper Austria kept many firefighters in suspense. As reported, a total of 35 fire brigades were deployed in the Braunau and Schärding districts. In Marchtrenk (Wels-Land district), five cars parked in a field during a football game fell victim to the flames.
You can see where the emergency services had to move out at the weekend in this graphic:
This post will be updated as more information becomes available.
Source: Nachrichten
