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OFUNATO, Japan: Japan battled its worst wildfire in half a century on Wednesday in a region hit by record-low rainfall, as wet weather gave hope for some relief.
The blaze around the northern city of Ofunato has raged for more than a week, killing one person and forcing nearly 4,000 residents to evacuate their homes.
It has engulfed about 2,900 hectares — around half the size of Manhattan — making it the largest wildfire since at least 1975, when 2,700 hectares burnt in Hokkaido.
Columns of white smoke billowed from a mountain through the rain and snow on Wednesday, AFP reporters saw. More wet weather was forecast through Thursday.
“The fire was like nothing I’ve seen before. It was towering and spreading fast,” said Mitsuo Otsubo, 85, who fled his home to stay with a relative.
“It didn’t rain or snow at all this year... Thank goodness it rained today though. I can only hope it will help contain the situation,” the seaweed and scallop farmer said.
Japan endured its hottest summer on record last year as climate change pushes up temperatures worldwide.
Ofunato received just 2.5 millimeters (0.1 inches) of rainfall in February — breaking the previous record low for the month of 4.4 millimeters in 1967 and well below the average of 41 millimeters.
Makeshift tents were being set up at a city hall where around 270 people were taking shelter, with bottles of water and food supplies spread out on tables.
“Fires are the scariest disaster, because they spring from one place to another, so you don’t know where to run,” 69-year-old evacuee Fumiko Tanaka said.
“I can only hope the fires won’t reach my house.”
Tanaka and her husband, a fisherman, “feel the effect of climate change every year” as rising ocean temperatures affect what they are able to catch, she said.
At least 84 buildings are believed to have been damaged, although details are still being assessed, according to the fire agency.
The owner of an “onsen” hot spring inn voluntarily opened his facility for free to evacuees.
“Not being able to bathe yourself on top of dealing with the chaos of life in a shelter definitely wears you down,” 60-year-old Toyoshige Shida, of Ofunato Onsen, said.
He said he built the inn after seeing how people suffered in the wake of a huge earthquake and tsunami in 2011 that killed at least 340 people in Ofunato alone.
The number of wildfires in Japan has declined since its 1970s peak.
However, there were about 1,300 in 2023, concentrated in the period from February to April when the air dries out and winds pick up.
Greg Mullins, formerly fire and rescue commissioner for the Australian state of New South Wales, said this fire and the recent Los Angeles wildfires were “highly unusual” because they were in winter.
“In both cases the fires were preceded by hot summers, which increased evaporation and drying of vegetation, followed by large rainfall deficits that parched the landscape,” he said.
“This is a common by-product of climate change,” said Mullins, a founder of the Emergency Leaders for Climate Action group.
“As the planet warms further we can expect to see fires in places where they have never before been a problem.”
Around 2,000 firefighters, most deployed from other parts of Japan, including Tokyo, have been working from the air and on the ground.
“The fact that teams of firefighters are being reinforced every day, and that the fire has been going on for a week, shows the extent of the dry weather and the difficulties we are facing,” Ofunato Mayor Kiyoshi Fuchigami told reporters.
The topography of the mountainous coastal area, with steep slopes and narrow and winding roads, was hampering the fire-fighting operation.

MANILA: Philippine rescuers on Wednesday found the wreckage of a fighter jet and the bodies of two crewmen sent to combat communist rebels in a mountainous region of the country’s south.
The FA-50 fighter jet had gone missing a day earlier while on a mission to provide air support for troops fighting guerrillas in northern Mindanao.
Lt. Gen. Luis Rex Bergante, commander of Eastern Mindanao Command, said the two crewmen had been found inside the wreckage.
“The bodies were found inside the aircraft. There was an attempt to open a parachute and eject,” he said.
“The aircraft was a total wreck. The aircraft smashed through the trees in the mountain.”
Lt. Col. Francisco Garello of the 4th Infantry Division said the wreckage of the missing jet was found on Mount Kalatungan.
Located in Mindanao’s Bukidnon province, the 2,880-meter Kalatungan is the fifth-tallest mountain in the Philippines.
Bergante said bringing the servicemen’s remains down the mountainside was now the top priority.
In a statement, the air force said it had temporarily “grounded its FA-50 fleet” and would “ensure a thorough investigation into the accident,” the cause of which remains unknown.
The crashed jet was one of a dozen FA-50s the Philippines purchased from South Korea in the past decade.
Garello said early Wednesday that the search had been suspended overnight due to the danger of “communist groups” believed to be operating in the area.
On Tuesday, he said his division had called in air support during a firefight with the New People’s Army, a long-running Maoist insurgency now believed to have fewer than 2,000 fighters.
The jets flew out of Mactan-Benito Ebuen Air Base, which shares a runway with the airport in Cebu, the Philippines’ second-largest city.
Air force spokeswoman Col. Consuelo Castillo told reporters Tuesday it was the “first major incident” involving its squadron of FA-50s, which have been used in exercises over the disputed South China Sea.
The FA-50s have been flown in joint air patrols with treaty ally the United States over contested areas of the South China Sea, where China and the Philippines have been involved in increasingly tense confrontations.
On Wednesday, Castillo said the air force hoped the investigation would be “done thoroughly but swift enough for us not to sacrifice our operational readiness” given the fighters’ key role in maritime patrols.
She also said the air force has proposed purchasing 12 more FA-50s, a request under consideration at the Department of National Defense.
There have been a number of deadly crashes involving Philippine military aircraft in recent years.
Two navy pilots were killed last April when their Robinson R22 helicopter crashed near a market south of the capital Manila during a training flight.
Two PAF pilots were killed in January 2023 when their Marchetti SF260 turboprop plane crashed into a rice field.