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The country’s largest blaze on record has left 27 dead and destroyed heritage sites, including two 1,000-year-old temples.
By Jin Yu Young
Photographs and Video by Chang W. Lee
Chang W. Lee, a staff photographer, reported from the region struck by wildfires.
March 27, 2025Updated 7:52 a.m. ET
South Korea’s largest wildfires on record blazed through the country’s southeast for a seventh day, with firefighters, soldiers and heritage workers racing to evacuate people and save ancient treasures from the encroaching flames.
At least 37,000 people were evacuated from their homes as the fires, which have left 27 people dead, spread in the dry and windy weather. The fires had burned over 88,000 acres of land, the biggest on record in South Korea, according to the Interior Ministry. The largest blaze in Euiseong County was only about halfway contained on Thursday.
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Rescue crews were also focusing on saving as many relics and heritage buildings as possible after two 1,000-year-old Buddhist temples burned to the ground. Around two dozen buildings, trees, statues and other things with national heritage status have been lost to the flames so far, according to the Korea Heritage Service, the government body responsible for the conservation of national treasures and sites.
A statue of a seated Buddha from the early 9th century that was reduced to ashes. And the base and branches of a 400-year-old tree considered the guardian of a local village was charred in the flames.
