Ōfunato wildfire
2025 fire in Iwate, Japan
On 26 February 2025, a wildfire began in the southeast of Ōfunato, a city in the Iwate Prefecture of Japan. The fire grew to cover 2,900 ha (7,200 acres) before it was extinguished on 9 March, making it the largest wildfire in Japan in over 50 years. It destroyed 171 structures, killed one person, and forced over 4,500 people to evacuate.
Background
Antecedent conditions
Japan had its hottest year on record in 2024. The fire started during Ōfunato's dry season, which runs from January to March. The city had seen the least amount of rainfall in February on record with just 2.5 mm (0.098 in), compared to the average of 41 mm (1.6 in), breaking the previous record of 4.4 mm (0.17 in) set in 1967. Yusuke Yokoyama, a professor at the University of Tokyo's Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute, attributed the dry conditions to cold, dry air clashing with moist air from the sea.
Yokoyama also mentioned that the fire's quick spread could be due to the topography of the steep mountains where the fire was spreading. Yoshiya Touge, a professor of water resource research at Kyoto University, stated that many of the trees in the area were very flammable conifers which, along with strong air currents in the area, was contributing to the fire's spread.
Other fires
Two other wildfires had started around Ōfunato in the weeks preceding the blaze.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ōfunato wildfire” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.