Iwate Forests Burn Again as 1,300 Firefighters Battle Otsuchi Wildfire

Mountainous forest in northern Japan has lost 700 hectares since Wednesday, with helicopters and Self-Defense Forces troops deployed across Otsuchi as fire engines hold flames clear of homes.

Wood Central
Wood Central
Wed 29 Apr 26
NASA Terra MODIS satellite view of a thick white smoke plume drifting east over the Pacific Ocean from the Ofunato forest fire on Iwate's snow-covered Pacific coast in northern Japan, March 2025.
NASA's Terra satellite captured this MODIS view on 1 March 2025 of the smoke plume from the Ofunato forest fire drifting east across the Pacific from Iwate's snow-covered coast, with that blaze going on to burn 3,370 hectares and become Japan's largest forest fire in more than half a century. The 2026 Otsuchi wildfire is now burning across mountainous country 30 kilometres south along the same Sanriku coastline under similar dry late-winter conditions. (Photo Credit: NASA Earth Observatory / Lauren Dauphin, using MODIS data from NASA's Terra satellite)

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More than 1,300 firefighters, around a dozen helicopters and Japan Self-Defence Forces troops have been mobilised across the mountains of northern Japan’s Iwate prefecture to fight a forest fire that has burnt roughly 700 hectares in three days and forced more than 3,200 residents to evacuate near the town of Otsuchi.

That is according to local government officials in Iwate, who told AFP on Saturday morning that the blaze first broke out three days ago across mountainous forest country and has since destroyed at least eight buildings, all of which had been evacuated by the time fire crews reached them.

Wood Central understands the column of smoke rising from the burning forest near Otsuchi can be smelled 30 kilometres away, with helicopters dropping water on the canopy and fire engines spraying the forest edge near homes to hold the flames clear of the town.

“We’re making efforts to extinguish (the fires) … and will update the information,” an Iwate official told AFP on Saturday, as the helicopter and ground deployment widened across the morning.

A resident in Otsuchi pinned his hopes on the weather rather than the firefighting effort, telling public broadcaster NHK that rain was the outcome he wanted. “Ultimately, I do hope it’ll rain,” the man said.

The Iwate fire follows last year’s catastrophic blaze in the prefecture’s coastal city of Ofunato, which was recorded as Japan’s worst forest fire in more than half a century, with that earlier event also taking hold across mountainous areas during dry late-winter conditions.

Increasingly dry winters across northern Japan have raised wildfire risk in standing forests, with scientists linking longer, more intense droughts to human-caused climate change driven by burning fossil fuels.

At least eight buildings have been burnt in the Otsuchi blaze, and all residents had evacuated before the flames arrived, the Iwate official told AFP, with the prefecture mobilising helicopters, firefighters and Self-Defence Forces troops on Saturday to bring the three-day blaze under control.

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    Wood Central is Australia’s first and only dedicated platform covering wood-based media across all digital platforms. Our vision is to develop an integrated platform for media, events, education, and products that connect, inform, and inspire the people and organisations who work in and promote forestry, timber, and fibre.

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