RIGA, June 10 (Xinhua) -- A major fire broke out in Adazi military training grounds outside Riga as NATO allies were holding a training exercise there on Sunday, Latvian defense spokesperson said.
The blaze started in an area covered with moss and heather amid a prolonged dry spell which has continued in Latvia for more than a month, significantly increasing fire risks, Sandra Brale, a spokeswoman for the Latvian Defense Ministry said on public television on Sunday afternoon.
Parts of the Adazi training grounds are also protected nature territories but they have not been affected by the fire, the size of which is not clear at the moment.
Personnel of the State Fire and Rescuer Service and the State Forest Service, as well as a helicopter and troops of the Latvian armed forces are currently involved in putting out the fire, Brale said.
Sunday's fire in the Adazi training grounds follows an earlier accident that happened there on Saturday when a military transport vehicle started burning during parachuting drills that were held as part of the U.S.-led multinational military training exercise Swift Response'18.
Major Mairita Senkevicina of the Latvian Defense Ministry's PR department, said that fires are nothing very unusual in the training grounds as the troops practice shooting with live ammunition and because of the hot and dry weather, the moss and grass catch fire very easily.
"As soon as there is burning, the drills are suspended and everything is being done to extinguish the fire," Major Senkevicina said.
Zigmunds Jaunkikis, a representative of the State Fire Service, said that the area affected by the fire was large and still expanding but that the flames had not spread outside the shooting grounds.
