People said they had to try to tackle the fire themselves to protect their homes until firefighters were able to reach the scene and put it out.
Residents in Maramures in northern Romania have been surveying the damage after a massive fire in the area was extinguished.
Six warehouses have been reduced to ashes and entire orchards have been destroyed in the blaze that broke out on Saturday.
The secretary of state in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Raed Arafat, said on Saturday that 90 people had been evacuated from the area.
Locals said the fire started suddenly and quickly intensified before spreading to houses.
“I was scared, I called 112, they asked me how close the fire was to us, it was about 30 metres away,” said local resident, Cornelia Pop.
People said they had to try to tackle the fire themselves to protect their homes until firefighters were able to reach the scene and put it out.
“With shovels, with water pumps, with what we had, we also worked so that the fire did not advance. Lucky that the vegetation around here was mowed, otherwise we would have burned like rats,” said another local, Alexandru Precup.
More than 250 firefighters from Maramures and neighbouring counties were mobilised to extinguish the fire.
Fire crews will remain in the area for the time being for monitoring purposes. The area is also under observation with the help of a drone and aircraft are also flying over.
The General Inspectorate for Emergency Situations believes the fire started on an area of dry vegetation between the localities of Lapusel, Coltau and Ariesu de Padure and quickly got out of control.
But authorities don’t yet know how it started and have opened an investigation to determine the cause.
