Suva Planina Fire: Helicopters Battle Final Hot Spot
The commander of Nis's Fire and Rescue Brigade says helicopters are extinguishing the last active hot spot below Sokolov Kamen peak, after ground crews found the terrain impossible to reach.
The wildfire on Suva Planina is under control today, September 18. Only one hot spot remains active, and helicopters from Serbia’s Interior Ministry (MUP) are dousing it from the air. The update came from Marko Radovanovic, commander of the Nis Fire and Rescue Brigade.
According to him, only one point with open flame is left on the ground. It sits below Sokolov Kamen peak, on a stretch of the mountain firefighters cannot reach on foot.
“The area caught by fire is below Sokolov Kamen peak, and it sits on extremely inaccessible terrain. We cannot reach it from the ground, so we decided to try to put the fire out from the air,” Radovanovic said.
Firefighters had originally planned a different sequence for putting out the blaze. They intended to wait for the fire to descend on its own to the first stretch of terrain reachable by vehicle and crew, then extinguish it on the spot. That plan changed today.
“We originally planned to wait for it to come down to the first accessible terrain and put it out there, but we don’t want to wait any longer,” Radovanovic said.
The commander added that the affected area is bordered by mountain roads, which stops the fire from crossing into other parts of the massif. These are roads, not footpaths, and that distinction is why firefighters are not worried the flames will spread further while the air operation is underway.
How the Fire Progressed Since September 4
The fire on Suva Planina broke out on September 4, in forest above the Bela Palanka villages of Veta and Kosmovac, in Bela Palanka municipality. Drought and strong wind let it spread quickly across the entire mountain range, which stretches 45 kilometers long and 15 kilometers wide.
During the earlier stage of firefighting, more than 170 people and 46 vehicles were deployed. Three MUP helicopters helped fight the fire, along with a Russian firefighting plane, an Ilyushin, which flew nine passes over Suva Planina.
Radovanovic says the opposite side of the mountain, toward Gadzin Han municipality, has been calm for days now. There is no fire or smoke there.
Last weekend, mountaineers from the “Trem 1819” mountaineering society, based in Donji Dusanik, hiked the peaks above the village of Semca as part of an organized outing. By their account, the damage on the ground was smaller than it had looked while the fire was burning.
“All the tall dry grass burned, along with dry low vegetation and the occasional hollow or dry beech tree, as well as all the dwarf pine. Nothing green and healthy caught fire except the dwarf pine. Not a single beech or whitebeam burned, and even a dog rose bush is still standing on the scorched ground,” reported the mountaineers who went out on the terrain.
Their account applies to the part of the massif already under control, not to the hot spot below Sokolov Kamen, where the fire was still burning at the time of their visit.
We have been reporting on the Suva Planina fire since September 5. Two weeks have passed since the first report of flames above Veta and Kosmovac, and only a single point remains to be extinguished on the 45 kilometer massif. That is the job the Nis brigade commander decided to hand to helicopters, rather than wait for the fire to descend on its own to terrain firefighters could reach by vehicle.
