Around 600 people in the Belgian towns of Waimes and Bütgenbach were ordered to leave their homes on Saturday due to a rapidly spreading wildfire, shifting winds and heavy smoke, news agency Belga reports.
Around 1,600 hectares of land has burned since the fire started on Friday afternoon close to the German border.
The raging blaze “is the biggest fire Belgium has ever seen,” public broadcaster RTBF and other Belgian outlets quote local politicians as saying.
Earlier on Saturday, Belgium requested assistance from other European Union countries to tackle the blaze.
German firefighters have been at the site since Friday night, according to local authorities.
Additional helicopters and aircraft from the Czech Republic, Sweden and the Netherlands have been mobilized, EU Crisis Commissioner Hadja Lahbib wrote on X on Saturday.
Local authorities also requested help from the country’s army, which is sending firefighting vehicles from their air bases.