South Korea’s largest wildfires on record blazed through the country’s southeast for a seventh day, with firefighters, soldiers and heritage workers racing to evacuate people and save ancient treasures from the encroaching flames.

At least 37,000 people were evacuated from their homes as the fires, which have left 27 people dead, spread in the dry and windy weather. The fires had burned more than 88,000 acres of land, the biggest on record in South Korea, according to the Interior Ministry. The largest blaze in Euiseong County was only about halfway contained Thursday.

Rescue crews were also focusing on saving as many relics and heritage buildings as possible after two 1,000-year-old Buddhist temples burned to the ground. About two dozen buildings, trees, statues and other things with national heritage status have been lost to the flames so far, according to the Korea Heritage Service, the government body responsible for the conservation of national treasures and sites.

A statue of Buddha from the 9th century was reduced to ashes. And the base and branches of a 400-year-old tree considered the guardian of a local village were charred.

The heritage service said it deployed around 750 people across the region to protect or remove what still remains. The southeastern region is home to a large proportion of the more than 4,000 items on the country’s national heritage list.

In the city of Andong, firefighters and officials worked to protect UNESCO Heritage sites as the inferno threatened to spread to those locations. In the 600-year-old Hahoe folk village, firefighters hosed buildings as helicopters dropped buckets of water from above. Workers relocated signage from the Byeongsanseowon Confucian Academy, a tourist attraction.

While the government has successfully evacuated tens of thousands of residents across at least eight cities and counties, thousands of others have stayed behind. Many remained to protect their homes, businesses, livestock and pets.