Efforts are ongoing to extinguish massive wildfires in Daejeon and Hongseong County in South Chungcheong Province, with the authorities mobilizing the highest-level forest fire response to tackle the emergencies.

According to the Korea Forest Service on Monday, the second stage of its three-tier response regime was put in place at 12:40 p.m. Sunday to suppress the blaze that had spread along the mountains in Hongseong 100 minutes earlier.

The system, however, was soon upgraded to the third stage amid the rapid advance of the fires.

A total of 17 helicopters, 67 firefighting apparatuses including fire trucks, and over 900 firefighters were dispatched in response but as of 9:50 p.m. Sunday, only 26 percent of the fires were tamed.

Over 900 hectares of forests were estimated to have been affected by the wildfires while 236 residents were evacuated.

Another wildfire also took place in Sanjik-dong and Geumsan County in Daejeon at around 12:19 p.m. Sunday, prompting the activation of the third-stage response around eight hours later and forcing around 380 residents to take shelter as the fires scorched around 190 hectares of land.

Separately, Dangjin and Boryeong in South Chungcheong Province each reported wildfires on Sunday as dry weather affected the nation’s central regions.