A forest fire tore through North Korea’s Mount Kumkang region over the weekend, state media claims, coinciding with what NK News reported on Monday was the destruction of a South Korean-owned multi-million dollar golf resort in the area at the same time.

The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) mentioned the golf resort in a report on Tuesday and said unspecified “facilities” were damaged, while fresh satellite imagery taken Monday showed continuing destruction of the Ananti Golf Resort and Spa after the reported fire.

KCNA did not speculate on the cause of the fire. It is possible the blaze erupted due to natural causes, or that efforts to demolish the resort intentionally — as Kim Jong Un promised to do in 2019 — sparked the forest fire. 

Satellite imagery corroborates state media’s claims of a forest fire in the Mount Kumgang area, but it is unclear if the Ananti resort’s apparent destruction was part of Kim Jong Un’s stated plans to remove South Korean assets in the area | Images: Planet Labs PBH, edited by NK News

Authorities have already been carrying out a controlled demolition of the Haegumgang Hotel, owned by South Korea’s Hyundai Asan company, in nearby Kosong Port since early March, despite protests from Seoul and the company.

KCNA rarely reports on domestic forest fires, raising the possibility Pyongyang is seeking to indirectly offer an explanation for revelations over the Ananti resort’s destruction or deny that it was demolished intentionally.

Tuesday’s report added that the “Cabinet and the State Emergency Disaster Committee took emergency measures to immediately extinguish the forest fire and rehabilitate the affected area.”

Planet Labs satellite imagery shows both evidence of a large forest fire covering a 6.5-square-mile (17 square km) area surrounding the Ananti facilities between April 9 and 10, as KCNA claimed, and the destruction of 10 large lodging buildings at the resort over the same period. 

10 lodging buildings of the Ananti golf resort began to disappear from the map between April 9 and 10, when the fire reportedly occurred | Images: Planet Labs PBH, edited by NK News

Evidence of additional fire-related building collapses, intentional demolition or cleanup efforts appeared at the Ananti facilities between April 10 and 11 | Images: Planet Labs PBH, edited by NK News

State media said the fire broke out around 3:20 p.m. on April 9 and was extinguished by 11:20 a.m. the following day. A satellite image taken just before 11:00 a.m. on April 10 shows smoke rising only from a small pocket in the southeastern corner of the damaged area, with no additional fire damage apparent on April 11.

The speed with which such a large number of buildings appeared to be destroyed — in under a day — originally raised the possibility that explosives were used in an intentional demolition, but a fire could also cause a similar scope of damage. 

A group of small homes of local North Koreans nearby the resort and in the center of the affected area did not appear damaged.

NK News was not able to determine from available satellite imagery whether the fire or the building destruction occurred first.

However, the imagery shows additional removal or destruction of buildings at the resort from April 10-11, after the forest fire appeared to be put out. This may be due to smaller fires within the resort, quick work by response crews to clean up or continuing work on intentional demolition of the facilities. Higher resolution imagery is needed to determine the exact nature of the activity.

Updated on April 12 at 9:10 a.m. KST

Edited by Arius Derr