Firefighters fought against a large wildfire that ravaged a nature reserve in eastern Belgium and another on a Greek island near Athens, resulting in two fatalities on Sunday due to hot and dry conditions escalating fires across various parts of Europe.
In eastern Belgium, a fire consumed approximately 30 square kilometers in the High Fens, a significant nature reserve, marking one of the country’s most severe wildfires in recent memory. Nearly 600 residents in the nearby municipalities of Waimes and Bütgenbach, situated in Liège province near the German border, were instructed to evacuate as winds changed direction and smoke enveloped the area. Authorities recommended tourists to depart, while a local gymnasium was designated as an evacuation shelter.
Hervé Jamar, the provincial governor of Liège, revealed on Sunday that over 250 emergency responders had been dispatched, including more than 100 firefighters from Belgium and Germany, in addition to police, military personnel, and civil protection teams. Firefighting helicopters from Belgium’s federal police and the Netherlands also offered assistance.
On a Greek island, the coast guard reported that an elderly couple perished outside their residence on Salamina Island, located west of Athens, near where the fire originated. Over 500 individuals were evacuated from the island. The fire erupted during Greece’s peak summer holiday weekend, coinciding with the Aug. 15 Assumption holiday, when numerous Athenians visit nearby islands like Salamina. The blaze caused property damage, with five individuals receiving medical attention at a local clinic.
Around 192 firefighters, 14 aircraft and helicopters, volunteer squads, and municipal water tankers were deployed to combat the blazes. Coast guard and firefighting vessels were mobilized to Salamina, with contingency plans arranged for potential sea evacuations from endangered coastal zones. Salamina faced a high wildfire risk warning on Sunday, with the cause of the fires remaining unknown.
The ongoing wildfire in Belgium has surpassed a 2011 blaze that scorched nearly 14 square kilometers in the same vicinity, previously standing as the nation’s largest recorded wildfire, as per data from the European Forest Fire Information System. Nicolas Yernaux, a spokesperson for the Public Service of Wallonia, noted that the current conditions were considerably more severe due to extremely dry soil.
René Dahmen, chief engineer at the Department of Nature and Forests, mentioned that the fire was still spreading on Sunday in a challenging terrain for firefighting crews to access. Interior Minister Bernard Quintin confirmed that firefighters successfully prevented the fire from spreading westward toward the German town of Monschau. In Germany, local authorities cautioned that the fire was approximately 1.5 kilometers away from the border.
Belgium activated the European Union’s civil protection mechanism to receive aid from other nations, announced Hadja Lahbib, the EU’s crisis management commissioner. Lahbib emphasized that assistance was being extended to Belgium, with Sweden dispatching two water-bombing aircraft and three helicopters from the Netherlands and the Czech Republic being deployed.
The wildfires in Europe have been exacerbated by weeks of unusually hot and dry weather, complicating efforts to contain the flames, particularly in the High Fens’ heathland and peat bogs. Belgium experienced another wave of intense heat, with temperatures reaching around 37 degrees Celsius in certain regions on Friday.
In France, firefighters managed a wildfire in a pine forest in the Landes region with no major flare-ups overnight, according to Landes Prefect Gilles Clavreul. Authorities estimated the burned area at 17 square kilometers, with approximately 650 people evacuated. This marked the third significant wildfire in the vast pine forests of southwestern France this summer, following two others in late July.
Emergency crews in the United Kingdom combated 14 wildfires in South Wales with military support, cautioning about the persistent high risk of wildfires despite the easing heat wave. In central England, fires destroyed over a dozen homes in the West Midlands this week, coinciding with the hottest day of the year, recording temperatures of 38.1 degrees Celsius on Thursday.
In Germany, firefighters made notable progress against a wildfire in the Hürtgen Forest, allowing around 2,000 evacuated residents of Gey to return home on Saturday. Crews established a cleared cordon around the affected area to prevent the fire’s spread, with no open flames reported on Sunday.