Hot, dry conditions fuel major wildfires across Europe
Sylvie Corbet and Ahmad Seir Nassiri |
Firefighters are battling a massive wildfire that has scorched a nature reserve in eastern Belgium and another on a Greek island near Athens where two people have been killed.
A blaze in eastern Belgium burned about 30sqkm in the High Fens – a large nature reserve – in one of the country’s worst wildfires in recent history, as hot and dry conditions fuel blazes across parts of Europe.
About 600 residents in the nearby municipalities of Waimes and Bütgenbach, in Liège province near the German border, were told to evacuate on Saturday as winds shifted and smoke spread through the area.
Liège provincial governor Hervé Jamar said in a statement on Sunday that more than 250 emergency personnel have been deployed, including more than 100 Belgian and German firefighters, as well as police, military officers and civil protection staff.
Firefighting helicopters operated by Belgium’s federal police and the Netherlands also helped.
In Greece, two people were killed on Sunday in a wildfire on the island of Salamina, west of Athens.
The bodies were recovered in the village of Peristeria, where strong winds fuelled the rapidly spreading blaze.
A second blaze was reported in the Selini area. Firefighting and coast guard vessels were evacuating beachgoers in the area.
Some 260 firefighters were responding to the blazes, including 15 ground teams, 10 aircraft and eight helicopters.
The island had been placed at high wildfire risk on Sunday, with near gale-force winds.
“These conditions enabled the fire to quickly reach dangerous proportions and spread rapidly within seven minutes toward nearby residential areas,” Fire Brigadier General Vasileios Vathrakogiannis said.
The blaze now torching Belgium has far surpassed a 2011 fire that burned nearly 14sqkm in the same area and was previously the country’s largest wildfire on record, according to data from the European Forest Fire Information System.
In Germany, local authorities warned on Sunday that the fire was about 1.5km from the border.
Some farmers from Belgium and Germany filled up tanker trucks, pumping water from a nearby lake before heading toward the fire area to help firefighters.
Belgium activated the European Union’s assistance mechanism to receive help from other countries, EU Commissioner Hadja Lahbib, who is in charge of crisis management, said on X.
“The High Fens are burning. Belgium is not facing it alone,” Lahbib said.
Sweden sent two water-bombing aircraft, while three helicopters — two from the Netherlands and one from the Czech Republic — were also being deployed.
The fire follows weeks of unusually hot and dry weather.
The High Fens’ mix of heathland and peat bogs has complicated efforts to contain the flames.
Belgium was hit by another spell of intense heat this week, with temperatures reaching about 37C in parts of the country on Friday.
In France, firefighters battling a wildfire in a pine forest in the southwestern Landes region faced no major flare-ups overnight, Landes Prefect Gilles Clavreul said. Authorities estimated the total area burned at 17sqkm, while about 650 people had been evacuated from their homes.
In the UK, emergency crews were fighting 14 wildfires in south Wales with the support of military personnel.
In Germany, firefighters made significant progress against a wildfire in the Hürtgen Forest, allowing about 2000 evacuated residents of Gey to return home on Saturday.
AP