CTK
Updated 12 minutes ago
On Friday, the police charged a man detained after the outbreak of Thursday’s fire in the Czech Switzerland National Park with public endangerment due to negligence. The German citizen is being prosecuted at large, said regional police spokeswoman Veronika Hyšplerová.
The fire started on the access road to Pravčická brána on Thursday afternoon. Police officers, who were the first on the scene together with a national park ranger, started firefighting and immediately conducted an on-site investigation into a possible suspect, the police said today. After about three hours, the fire was located, and the firefighters extinguished it this morning.
On the spot, the police detained one person, a citizen of Germany, in connection with the possible cause of the fire. A breathalyzer test was positive, police said.
The fire station was taken over from the firemen on Friday by the national park administration, which will continue patrolling here for several days as a precaution. Tourists can once again travel from the Three Springs to Pravčická brána.
As a general threat, the police are investigating last year’s fire in the national park, which was the largest in the history of the Czech Republic, affecting over 1,000 hectares. Extinguishing the fire was very difficult. 6,000 firefighters took turns at it. In this case, detectives have not yet charged anyone. There was also a fire in the park in April this year, according to the park administrators, it was an arson attack. A fire destroyed the Vlčí hora observation tower in Krásná Lípa.
