Vidzeme fire crews handle seven calls over weekend, including dry grass fire in Smiltene
Latvia's Vidzeme regional fire and rescue service logged seven callouts from September 11-14, including a dry grass and reed fire covering three square meters in Smiltene.
The Vidzeme regional branch of Latvia's State Fire and Rescue Service (VUGD) received seven emergency calls between 6:30 a.m. on September 11 and 6:30 a.m. on September 14. Three of these involved fires, two required rescue operations, and two turned out to be false alarms.
One incident occurred on Rūpniecības Street in Smiltene, where dry grass and reeds burned across an area of about three square meters.
Other regional incidents
Over the weekend, firefighters also responded to Rīgas Street in Madona, where unattended food had burned on a stove in a first-floor apartment of a three-story residential building, affecting a small area of 0.1 square meters. That fire had already been extinguished before crews arrived.
Early Sunday morning, firefighters were called to the Bērzaune parish in Madona municipality, where a fallen tree was blocking a road. Crews sawed through the tree and cleared the roadway.
Another early Sunday call came from Stacijas Street in Valmiera, where a bicycle tire caught fire in the stairwell of a five-story residential building's ground floor, covering roughly 0.01 square meters. This fire, too, had been put out before rescue personnel arrived.
Nationwide figures
Across Latvia as a whole during the same period, VUGD received 131 calls in total: 35 related to firefighting, 53 to rescue operations, and 43 that were false alarms.
