A mountain blaze that broke out yesterday morning in Yangmingshan National Park was put out after five hours, following multi agency efforts involving dozens of fire trucks and helicopter water drops.
The fire might have been sparked by an air quality sensor operated by the National Center for High-Performance Computing, one of the national-level laboratories under the National Applied Research Laboratories, Yangmingshan National Park Headquarters said.
The Taipei City Fire Department said the fire, which broke out at about 11am yesterday near the mountainous Xiaoyoukeng (小油坑) Recreation Area was extinguished at 4:32pm.
Photo: Lu Chun-wei, Taipei Times
It had initially dispatched 72 personnel in four command vehicles, 16 fire trucks and an ambulance, the department said, adding that five additional command vehicles and eight more fire trucks were sent later, for a total of 91 personnel on site.
The New Taipei City Fire Department also dispatched two vehicles and four firefighters as support, while the National Air Service Corps deployed a Black Hawk helicopter from Taichung for aerial water drops, the fire department said.
The blaze scorched an estimated 50 hectares of land in the Qixingshan (七星山) area of the national park, it said, adding that the fire’s location was saddled between two ridges, helping it spread.
The Taipei City Police Department’s Beitou Precinct said that no injuries had been reported as of yesterday afternoon.
Officials said the exact cause of the fire remains under investigation.
In a statement issued yesterday evening, National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) Minister Wu Cheng-wen (吳誠文) said he "deeply regrets" the damage caused by the fire and that the NSTC would cooperate with investigators to determine what caused it.
The NSTC, which oversees the National Institutes for Applied Research, has also opened an internal investigation into the matter, and has asked all agencies under its jurisdiction to inspect their research equipment to prevent such incidents in the future, Wu said.
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