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A forest fire that started in the outskirts of Blagoevgrad was finally confined on September 10, after ravaging nearly 140 hectares of the Rila National Park for nine days. A total of 290 people – firefighters, police officers, local volunteers, foresters, and members of the armed forces – struggled to stop the spread of the blaze before it reached the city, a press release of the Bulgarian Ministry of Interior said. One week after the start of the fire, the group, aided by three French and two Spanish airplanes, managed to contain it on all sides and two days later, heavy rain doused the remaining flames. For a local policeman, the firefighting efforts resulted in hospitalization with a torn knee. The firefighting brigade, that first received the signal in the afternoon of September 3, immediately sent an 8-man squad to the location, the press release said. However, rough terrain obstructed any efforts to bring up equipment or water and allowed the flames to spread beyond the initial 20 hectares. Pushed by strong winds towards Blagoevgrad, the fire rapidly grew to a total of 120 hectares. On September 5, Blagoevgrad Mayor Kostadin Paskalev created a control center and officially asked the European Union to send aircrafts for the emergency. Two days later, France sent three airplanes: two “Canadair” machines for discharging water over the fire and one scouting aircraft, said the Ministry of Emergency Situations. By then, the total burning area had covered140 hectares. As the French planes were redirected for a day to work on another massive fire southeast of Sofia, the two Spanish planes joined the firefighting efforts at Rila. By September 9, the forest inferno was only about 20 km away from Blagoegravd, said Darik News, before the group managed to contain it on all sides, leaving 50 firefighters to put out the remaining flames. Lighting is the cause of the fire, said Nikolay Nikolov, head of the Chief Fire Safety and Rescue Directorate, in an interview for Darik Radio.
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