General News

Residents Evacuate to Shelters Amid Ofunato Forest Fire; Fishing District Devastated by Tsunami in 2011

The Yomiuri Shimbun

15:42 JST, February 27, 2025

OFUNATO, Iwate — Firefighting efforts continued Thursday, a day after a forest fire broke out in Ofunato, Iwate Prefecture, and forced many residents to spend a sleepless night.

The fire threatened the Ryori district fishing community, whose residents were told to evacuate. Located by a cove on a jagged coastline, the village was devastated by the tsunami from the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011.

“I fled immediately, thinking even one second earlier was better,” said an 80-year-old woman in the district.

She was alerted to the fire by a siren on Wednesday afternoon. She went outside and saw white smoke, which looked like a thunderhead cloud rising from the upwind district of Attari. Together with two other women in her neighborhood, she jumped in a car and arrived at a community center used as a shelter at about 5 p.m.

The Ryori district has a thriving industry of wakame seaweed and scallop cultivation. In 2011, the tsunami damaged 330 houses there.

The woman’s house was undamaged, but she was engulfed by water while driving a car. She narrowly escaped death by clinging to the second floor of a house that was floating in the water.

She heard the fire had spread close to the area where her house is located. Her son, 51, who lives in Sendai, called her, saying, “Even if the house burns down, it doesn’t matter if you’re alive.”

“Not only the tsunami but also a fire …” she said with a big sigh.

According to the Ofunato municipal government, the fire has burned more than 80 structures, including private houses. As of 7 a.m. Thursday, 540 people had evacuated to seven shelters, including elementary schools.

About 150 people fled to Okirai Elementary School in the city, where the evacuees used mats from the gym and cardboard to rest and wrapped themselves in blankets that were provided to them. Some people slept in their cars.

A 36-year-old company employee from the Ryori district saw there were not enough futon blankets at a shelter where he found refuge, so he collected blankets from people he knew and took them to the shelter.

“I wonder when this will be over,” said the man, who spent the night in a car.