September 18, 2024

Kharkiv currently sits 20km from the front line. Shelling, drones and missiles devastate the city daily. While the city is still densely populated, many people have evacuated. Emergency services play a key role in keeping people safe.

On the northeast of the city, along a road leading to Lyptsi, a front line village, a forest fire broke out in a treeline previously held by Russian forces. Due to the previous occupation the forest area is heavy contaminated with landmines and unexploded ordinance. This made battling the blaze particularly perilous for the State of Emergency Services of Ukraine.

Six fire fighters with no breathing apparatus and limited access to water battled the blaze for nearly 10 hours on a day when temperatures reached 35 degrees.

One fire fighter who had moved from Lviv to assist the strained services in the east said that ‘every job we do is now made much harder by the risk of mines, shelling or air strikes’