Andong wildfires
© YonhapMountains in Andong, some 190 kilometers southeast of Seoul, are seen charred after firefighters put out the major wildfires, in this March 30
The total area of woodland burned by the massive wildfires that ravaged North Gyeongsang Province last month is twice the initial estimate of the state Korea Forest Service, officials said Thursday.

According to a government-led joint investigation, roughly 90,000 hectares of land were damaged by a wave of forest fires that swept across five cities and counties in North Gyeongsang Province in March.

Initially, the forest service had put the estimated damage at 45,157 ha, or roughly half the actual area.

The revised figure is also nearly four times the 23,794 ha damaged by wildfires on the east coast in 2000, which were the worst in the nation's history at the time.

It is unusual for the area of actual damage to be far greater than the initial estimate of areas affected by wildfires, as the latter always includes zones that are later determined to have not been burned.

The forest authorities plan to verify the exact extent of the damage and announce it in the coming days.