Voden wildfire: Residents of the village tell about the horror and the damages

Thirty five houses and domestic animals burnt, damages for millions of BGN, miraculously without casualties. This is the summary after the fire in the village of Voden in the district of Yambol on July 16. The fire has now been suppressed, but individual outbreaks are still being extinguished. There are 25 teams on site, firefighting teams from Turkey have also arrived to help.

Raging wildfire reaches the village of Voden, people forced to flee their homes

Local people are walking around looking at their burnt houses and don't know what to do from now on. There are only tears in their eyes because some of them are left without any possessions and with only the clothes on their backs. The district administration in Yambol assured that there will be no person left homeless.

Meanwhile, a team from the Bolyarovo municipality has also started to make assessment of the damages in the village. The residents are not calm, they remain very worried and reproach the actions of the institutions as they were not informed in time and did not react adequately to prevent their houses from burning down.

This morning, Minka and Yanko Yanev faced the bitter reality after the fire in Voden village. Their home, the preserves for the winter and some of their domestic animals have been reduced to ashes.

Minka Yaneva: "I have nothing here, everything, the jars burned, all the new furniture burned, everything.

Minka learned that her house was on fire while she was working at the nursing home in the village. She panicked because her 10-year-old granddaughter was inside the house:

"I came here, I could see nothing because of the smoke, my granddaughter was inside. I told her to run. I only managed to save my son's bike, everything else was burning, everything."

The family was unable to take anything from their home. They were left with only the clothes on their backs.

Yanko Yanev: "There was a little money. My identity card was inside the burning house. I'm diabetic and I couldn't get pills."

35 houses were destroyed by the fire, 15 were inhabited. It is a miracle that no people were injured.

Nikolai Kostadinov, Yambol district governor: "At the moment the situation is calm, there is no reason to be anxious. The fire has been contained."

From the accounts of the residents, it is clear that the situation was underestimated. And the evacuation could have started earlier.

Stoyan Kyurchiev: "The fire started the other day, but our people didn't take any measures, the wind was very strong and here we have cemeteries, the fire burned through them and they thought it will stop, here, next to the motorway. If there was equipment, if there was a fire brigade or if there was a tractor - they were waiting for someone to order."

"There is no coverage of mobile operators and there is no way to be alerted about the fire through the early warning system, but nevertheless the Interior Ministry and fire fighting department officials announced that an evacuation situation was imminent with the sirens of their vehicles."

Ministry of Interior said that a large number of residents of the village of Voden refused to leave their homes and were forcibly removed.

- I went up to the highest house on the level there to have a look - it's very close to the village, the cemetery, and no measures are being taken - it's boiling there - flames. When we saw the flames we left on our own - nobody told us. Somebody should have told us: “Get out because you will burn’, nobody told us, I just saw the flames here."

Police, fire fighting and gendarmerie teams remain on duty at the scene.

Images by BTA, BGNES