Firefighters continue to battle massive wildfires from the air and on the ground in eastern coastal areas for the ninth day.

Korea Forest Service(KFS) Minister Choi Byung-am said in a news briefing Saturday that helicopters have been deployed since Friday to the Eungbong Mountain area and that about 85 percent of the fire has been put out.

Choi said that 80 helicopters and 360 ground personnel will be mobilized to extinguish the fire in the mountain areas, as well as some 600 firefighters in the Sogwang-ri area where the main flames have been put out but embers remain. 

Fire authorities are expecting the rain forecast for Sunday to help firefighting efforts. 

The government estimates that the wildfires have affected over 20-thousand hectares of land in Uljin and Samcheok and destroyed 754 facilities in the region.

As of 11:20 a.m. Saturday, the fires had burnt for 192 hours, the longest since statistics have been compiled. The previous record was set by wildfires in the east coastal region in 2000 that lasted for 191 hours.