Two lumberjacks set fire to an oak forest near the Berkovitsa village of Bokilovtsi in the Montana region yesterday, the Regional Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Montana reports.
The alarm was reported to 112 on Saturday at around 7:00 p.m. by the deputy mayor of the village of Bokilovtsi Borislav Dimitrov. A team of the Regional Service “Fire Safety and Population Protection“ – Berkovitsa was immediately sent to the scene. A task force was formed, which on site determined that the fire had engulfed an oak forest massif, in which there were still smoldering fires among the stumps of freshly felled trees, the police said.
The deputy mayor told the firefighters that when he saw the fire, he noticed two men in the yard of the former TKZS, one of whom he recognized and indicated that he was from the village of Barzia. During a conversation, they explained that they were cutting wood in the forest near the village. At the scene of the fire, the firefighters determined that the fire had started from the clearing. About a kilometer from the site, 30 cubic meters of felled oak wood were found.
The two loggers – aged 51 and 24, admitted that they caused the fire through negligence and joined in extinguishing it.
It is still being clarified what area of the forest was affected. Pre-trial proceedings have been initiated, the work on the case continues in the Regional Directorate - Berkovitsa.
At the beginning of the week, fires in barley and wheat fields in two places in the Montana region destroyed 700 acres of plantations and two combines.