Bratunac Mayor Nedeljko Mladjenovic declared the emergency as he said wildfires from several directions were threatening his town. Around 50 residents are helping firefighters and forest rangers fight a blaze creeping towards the suburb of Slapasnica, and the town's civil protection agency has asked for help from the army and residents.
In the country's south, firefighters are battling four blazes around the town of Konjic and townsfolk and tourists have begun evacuating houses near Boracko Lake as the extreme heat and strong winds have hindered the extinguishing of approaching blazes. Many tourists staying at the lake are Bosnians who live in Germany, returning home for the holidays. Zorica Muskovic arrived last week from Munich.
...Many of the fires swept through fields still dotted with mines from the Bosnian War, which took place in the region between 1992 and 1995. The resort is situated on a former frontline. Tourists said that they could hear loud explosions from the forest as the mines were set off by the blaze
Such fires have been burning in several areas of Bosnia for weeks and the fight to extinguish them has been complicated by the country's hilly terrain, strong winds, little rainfall and a 40-Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) heat wave which is forcing people to seek medical assistance....
A Serbian cemetery in Bratunac, shot by Julian Nitzsche, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license
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