Over eight thousand reported burnings and twenty interventions by firemen because of witches

“From the point of view of the firemen, we can classify this year’s witch burnings as among the average ones for the last few years. Throughout the Czech Republic, firefighters intervened from the night to the first day of May at less than twenty fires that had a direct connection with the burning of witches,” explained fire department spokesman Martin Kavka.

From the point of view of the firefighters, these were not major interventions, most of them were unextinguished fires or grass and forest fires. There were a total of six fire interventions in Prague.

People and event organizers reported 8,419 fires to the fire department in advance. “In several dozens of cases, firefighters went to the scene of a reported fire, where they eventually discovered a guarded fire that was not reported on the paleni.izscr.cz website,” added Kavka.

“There were quite a few fires in the natural environment during the last day of April, but it was not directly related to the burning of witches,” he added. For example, on Tuesday, firefighters intervened in an extensive forest fire in Horní Cerekva, it was a fire on an area of 12 hectares. A helicopter with a bambi bag was also used.

Many alarms were false

According to Central Bohemian firefighters, the entire so-called Filipojakubská night took place within the expected limits. In connection with burning fires, they had two dozen trips in the region. “The majority of trips were from the afternoon to midnight,” said Veronika Mocová Švorcová, the spokeswoman for the Central Bohemian fire department, according to whom it was nothing dramatic, everything was done without injuries to people or major damage.

“Many were false alarms, when the burning of witches was reported in advance in the register, but a passer-by saw the fire, called us, and we were unable to contact the organizer to see if everything was OK on the spot, so we had to leave,” explained Švorcová. In two cases, garbage was burned under the guise of witches. In addition to the witches, the firefighters dealt with dozens of other exits to traffic accidents or a fallen tree.

“Last year, firefighters in the Czech Republic dealt with a similar number of fires in connection with the burning of witches. In 2023, less than 8,000 fires were reported, i.e. a similar number as this year,” added Kavka.