MALMEDY: Firefighters have fully surrounded Belgium’s largest wildfire in a century after working through the night, but the situation on the ground “remains complicated” as crews battle several new flare-ups, authorities said Wednesday.
Crisis cell spokesman Tony Hosmans said the fire raging in the High Fens nature reserve “has been encircled” and is not moving east towards Germany, with the goal Wednesday to bring it under control “if possible with aerial support”. “The situation remains complicated due to a number of flare-ups that have occurred in various parts of the site,” he added.
The blaze, charring an expanse of peatland, pine trees and hiking trails, grew over the weekend to 3,000 hectares (7,500 acres), half the size of Manhattan, although hundreds of firefighters working night and day have managed to stop it spreading further.
The last area to be closed off was a hard-to-access front nearest the German border, where ground crews worked all night to seal the gap, moving in from the east and north under very difficult conditions. Operations have been complicated by the fens’ terrain, a patchwork of heath, peat bogs and raised wooden boardwalks.
Water-bombing aircraft from Norway, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands flew in to help, but were unable to operate at all on Tuesday due to low clouds. Intermittent rain has slowed the fire’s spread by raising humidity levels, though the weather has badly hampered aerial support since Monday.
The fire broke out Friday for reasons still unknown in an area ravaged by massive fires in 1911, during a similar period of heatwaves. It triggered evacuation orders in the German border town of Monschau as well as two Belgian villages, although residents of the hamlet of Sourbrodt have been given the green light to return home.
Europe has been swept by weeks of devastating wildfires fueled by dry conditions and a historically hot summer, with France, Greece, Portugal and Spain also battling major blazes.
Officials have warned that even once the fire is brought under control, it will take weeks or even months of soaking and dousing to prevent it from reigniting. “The fire is burning in the peat, so it is actually underground, sometimes quite deep,” area fire chief David Covens said on a trip into a fire zone. “Whenever we disturb the ground, when we cut down a tree and expose the soil, the fire can reignite,” he said. “We’re doing everything we can with the resources available, but we know this is going to take a long time.” — AFP