On Saturday, firefighters battled a wildfire that was blazing thru Belgium’s largest natural reserve. The fire was reportedly the worst in the nation’s recent history.
Local authorities warned that the fire, which has been raging since Friday, could spread to homes and ordered the evacuation of two neighboring communities as the flames engulfed a third of the High Fens.
Helicopters and water-bombing planes were dispatched from all across Europe to support the firefighters in the park, which is close to Belgium’s eastern border with Germany.
It was one of several wildfires that burned throughout Europe on Saturday, including a forest fire in southwest France that forced hundreds of people to flee their homes.
As of Saturday afternoon, local authorities in Belgium reported that the fire was still out of control.
The fire was the “largest in recent history” in the nation, according to Wallonia’s regional authorities’ spokesperson, Nicolas Yernaux.
He stated, “There is a risk that the fire could reach homes, but we are deploying all available resources to protect them,” and a local gymnasium was made available to house evacuees.
The park’s topography, which includes woodlands, moorland, and bog-like areas, as well as the weather, have hindered them, according to the authorities. According to Yernaux, firefighters had “allowed parts of the heathland to burn because the area is very difficult to access.”
“We managed to calm the fire coming from the plain, to prevent it from spreading into the fir forest,” Gregory Melotte, one of the firefighters, told Belgian television RTBF. Our mission is still ongoing, yet we were still successful.The wind has changed twice, once in our favor and once against us, and the flames are approaching us.”
The nation triggered reinforcements from other nations by activating the EU’s civil protection mechanism.
Two Swedish water-bombing planes and two helicopters, one from the Czech Republic and one from the Netherlands, were en route, according to European Commissioner Hadja Lahbib.
In the meantime, a blaze in Landes, southwest France, forced 650 families to flee their houses, according to local authorities.
More than 500 firemen were sent in to put out the fire, which started on Thursday and, according to authorities, rekindled on Saturday.
Since Friday, forest fires have also been recorded in Serbia, Croatia, and Spain following a summer of intense heat that has left large portions of Europe burned brown or in flames.
According to Copernicus, the EU’s climate monitoring program, the June–July period in western Europe was the hottest on record.
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