For two days between 18 and 19 January, an extremely dangerous fire burned houses to the grown in Lærdal, a small west coast village in Norway. Between 50 and 70 people had to watch their houses caught up in flames, and 40 buildings got completely destroyed. In excess of one week after this fire, another Norwegian village burns. Hasvåg in Flatanger commune is now completely covered by flames and 139 buildings are estimated to be on fire.
There has not been much snow fall in Norway this winter and warm winds makes the grown dry up. Powerful winds have made the beginning of 2014 extremely hectic for Norwegian fire fighters.
The fire in Flatanger started as a ling and turned into a forest fire. Terje Alsvik Walløe from the metrological institute sees a clear similarity between the fire in Lærdal and the one in Flatanger. He says that it is the strong winds that make the flames spread at this speed. It is the same weather condition that caused fire both places. Walløe comments to Dagbladet that it is the very dry east wind on the west coast that has now passed through the mountains, making it very windy in Flatanger.
In Flatanger the dry wind is a very important factor for why the fire started – it made the nature very dry. In Lærdal, on the other hand, the wind made the fire spread.
Measures to prevent future fires have not been determined yet.
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