Sweden experienced the largest blazing forest fire in their history. This incident forces forest owners to start preparing to face the massive losses caused by the blaze.

Forest owners Bergvik Skog, AB Karl Hedin, and Sveaskog AB have reported losses of more than a thousand hectares of trees.

Like Us on Facebook

Helene Baeck, spokesperson for Sveaskog, told Bloomberg that they cannot provide an actual estimate on the losses yet. She said that the company has already contained the fire on their property since August 2.

Baeck disclosed that the Sveaskog forests lost 1,000 to 1,5000 hectares of land.

Sveaskog also said the fire covered bogs, marshlands, and pine trees in its property. The fire started during a groundwork to prepare tree planting sites. However, Sveaskog said the blaze did not start from its forest.

Bergvik Skog, top shareholder of Stora Enso Oyj, said that approximately 2,500 hectares of its forests were burnt.

A spokesperson for Bergvik Skog forest director Lars-Erik Wigert said it is still early to estimate the losses since the fires are still raging.

Kajsa Svaerd, spokeswoman for Nordic's largest property and accident insurer If, told Bloomberg that the they receive customers in the area from time to time. However, just like the other forest owners, they have yet to investigate on the costs of the damages.

At present, their top priority is the safety of their employees and the residents in the surrounding area, said Svaerd.

The blaze covered roughly 15,000 hectares of land. On Tuesday, the Swedish government announced the incident as a national emergency.

The forests have been burning for about five days at the moment, according to reports.

Italian and French water-bombing aircrafts were sent to help emergency services isolate the fire.

The French planes arrived on Tuesday evening while the Italian aircrafts arrived on Wednesday. 

TagsSweden, Forest Fire