Czech firefighters respond to 88 fires during Witches Night

Firefighters in the Czech Republic responded to 88 calls of out-of-control fires during last night's Witches Night celebrations, according to information tweeted by the Czech Fire and Rescue Service. The number is in line with previous years, and around half of the fires were inferred to have resulted from celebratory bonfires.

"Firefighters responded to a total of 88 fires, of which about half were [outdoors], which suggests that they were in some way related to the celebrations," the Fire and Rescue Service tweeted this morning. Organizers were asked to register their bonfire at this link, so that firefighters could follow-up and ensure the fires had been properly put out today. Approximately 8,000 bonfires were registered last night.

An annual campaign organized by AutoMat that encourages car-free travel this month is now underway. The Bike to Work campaign, inspired by similar campaigns in Berlin and Copenhagen, promotes car-free travel and targets those who are able to walk, bike, or ride a scooter to work in Prague and other cities across the Czech Republic.

"The benefits of regular exercise will be felt not only by all participants in the campaign, but potentially all of us thanks to an improvement in traffic and the state of the environment in our cities," says AutoMat's Dominika Lenthárová. Last year, 22,000 people officially registered to participate in the Bike to Work campaign in the Czech Republic, and organizers expect a higher turnout this year.

Two-time Olympic gold medal winner Lukáš Krpálek has been named the best judoka in Europe at the 2022 European Judo Championships. Krpálek is the first judoka to win the annual prize, coming off a gold medal victory at the Summer Olympics in Tokyo in the heavyweight class. Krpálek previously won a gold medal at the 2016 Summer Olympic in Rio in the half heavyweight class.

"The path to the Olympic gold was not easy," Krpálek recently told Czech Radio, referring to pandemic restrictions leading up to the Tokyo Olympics. "If I think about the [training] conditions of myself and those enjoyed by judokas with greater support, the conditions were different." Krpálek said he highly values the trophy given to him by European Judo Union President Otto Kneitinger.

The average person in the Czech Republic consumes 813 kilograms of food each year, according to a new infographic released by the Czech Statistical Office this weekend. That total includes 84 kilograms of meat, 93.2 kilograms of vegetables, 87.8 kilograms of fruit, and 249 eggs.

According to 2019 statistics, about 20 percent of Czechs are obese, with men slightly more likely to be obese. However, nearly half of Czech men (48 percent) are considered overweight, while less than a third of Czech women (32.6 percent) are overweight.

As the NHL regular season comes to a close this weekend, hockey players from teams that didn't make the playoffs will be able to re-join their national team for the upcoming IIHF World Championships. This year's hockey championships will take place from May 13-29 in Tampere and Helsinki, Finland.

Seven Czech players from NHL teams that did not advance to the playoffs will rejoin the Czech national team for the World Championships, according to a press release by general manager Petr Nedvěd and coach Kari Jalonen. Those players include goalkeeper Karel Vejmelka, defenders Filip Hronek and Radim Šimek, and forwards Jakub Vrána, Dominik Simon, Dmitrij Jaškin and Tomáš Hertl.

Bonfires will be lit across the Czech Republic tonight as the country celebrates Witches Night (Čarodějnice), an annual cultural event celebrating the end of the cold weather season. Due to the pandemic and related restrictions, Witches Night celebrations were not held in 2020 or 2021.

Overcast skies are in the forecast for Prague and much of the Czech Republic tonight, though there's low chance for rain. In the Czech capital, you can catch the celebratory witch-burning bonfires at Ladronka Park, Kampa Park, Žluté lázně, and numerous other locations around the city. See our full breakdown here for more tips and information about Witches Night in the Czech Republic.

The Czech Republic's national hockey team will face Sweden at 4:00 p.m. this afternoon during the Czech Hockey Games, an annual Euro Hockey Tour tournament. The Czech team lost to Finland on Thursday, while Sweden topped Austria. Austria is competing in the Euro Hockey Tour for the first time this year after Russia was banned from the tournament due to the actions of the country in Ukraine.

The Czech team has won the Czech Hockey Games in three of the past five years; Finland won in 2019 and the tournament was not held in in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic and related restrictions. The tournament will conclude on Sunday as the Czech Republic faces Austria and Finland squares off against Sweden.

Jaroměř, in the Hradec Králové region of the Czech Republic, will remove a controversial statue of a Russian soldier from a WWII memorial according to daily newspaper Mladá fronta Dnes. The statue, which features a Red Army soldier carrying a submachine gun, was installed in 1981 as the primary motif at a memorial to victims of WWII.

Local librarian Jana Žárská and psychologist Michaela Peterková wrote an open letter, signed by 120 others, asserting that the statue memorialized post-1968 Soviet occupation and calling on the town assembly to move the statue elsewhere. During a vote last week, fifteen town officials voted in favor of moving the statue to the nearby Josefov Fortress by the end of the year.

Russian-owned financial institution Sberbank will not appeal a decision by the Czech National Bank to revoke its license and will head into liquidation, Sberbank CZ Director of Communications Jan Hainz has told local media this weekend. While the company has reservations about the legality of the Czech National Bank's decision, it believes this is the quickest way to resolve the current situation, Hainz added.

The Czech National Bank announced the revocation of Sberbank's license on April 14, and Sberbank had until Friday to file an appeal. After opting not to do so, the bank will now head into liquidation. Sberbank CZ is ready to work closely with the Czech National Bank in ​​order to liquidate the bank's assets as quickly as possible and settle debts to creditors, Hainz stated.

After a spring break that saw operation limited to weekends, cable cars are now back in operation at the Czech Republic's Krkonoše Mountains in the Hradec Králové Region. Snow continues to melt at the peaks of the Czech mountains, with a mild first-degree avalanche warning currently in effect.

The cable cars back in operation include a lift to the top of the Sněžka, the tallest mountain in the Czech Republic. The spring break also provided an opportunity for annual maintenance of the cable cars, including the testing of breaks. The Czech Republic saw one fatal cable car accident last year when a vehicle in Liberec crashed to the ground.