With parts of the reserve difficult or dangerous for heavy firefighting vehicles to access, helicopters and water-bombing aircraft have now become a critical part of the operation.<\/p>\n
More than 250 firefighters and emergency personnel from Belgium and Germany have been deployed, alongside police, military personnel and civil protection teams. Belgium has also activated the European Union\u2019s civil protection mechanism to secure international assistance.<\/p>\n
Sweden has sent two water-bombing aircraft, while helicopters from Belgium and other European countries have joined the aerial operation. The aircraft and helicopters are being coordinated to reduce the risk of collisions while water is dropped on the advancing fire.<\/p>\n
![\"world\"](\"https:\/\/images.firstpost.com\/dlxczavtqcctuei\/news18\/static\/images\/fp\/revamp_v1\/earth.svg\")
More from WorldWhy the High Fens fire is so difficult to control<\/p>\n
The High Fens, a large nature reserve in eastern Belgium, is a particularly challenging environment for firefighters. Its landscape contains peat bogs, heathland and pine forests, with some sections inaccessible to heavy vehicles.<\/p>\n
Fire crews are therefore having to establish defensive lines and prevent the flames from reaching nearby residential areas rather than simply attacking the fire from every direction.<\/p>\n
Ren\u00e9 Dahmen, chief engineer at the Department of Nature and Forest, said the fire was still advancing in an area that was difficult for crews to reach.<\/p>\n
The eastern flank has a line of fire stretching at least a kilometre and moving slowly towards a municipal forest, he said, making it a priority for firefighters.<\/p>\n
The shifting winds have further complicated the operation, while thick smoke has spread well beyond the immediate fire zone.<\/p>\n
Authorities have evacuated around 600 residents from nearby municipalities, including Waimes and B\u00fctgenbach, while tourists have also been urged to leave the area. A local gymnasium was opened to accommodate people forced to leave their homes.<\/p>\n
Around 20 people spent the night in a sports hall, according to local authorities, while others stayed with relatives or friends.<\/p>\n
No homes had been reported damaged as of Sunday, but the fire remains close to residential areas and officials have warned people to stay away from the affected zone so emergency vehicles can move freely.<\/p>\n
Belgium’s biggest wildfire in years<\/p>\n
The scale of the blaze has already surpassed a major 2011 wildfire in the same region, which burned nearly 14 square kilometres.<\/p>\n
The latest fire has therefore more than doubled the previous record, with authorities warning that extremely dry conditions are making containment considerably harder.<\/p>\n
Nicolas Yernaux, a spokesperson for the Public Service of Wallonia, said the current situation was particularly serious because of the dryness of the soil.<\/p>\n
The High Fens fire comes after weeks of unusually hot and dry weather across Belgium and much of Europe. Temperatures reached around 37\u00b0C in parts of Belgium on Friday, creating highly favourable conditions for vegetation to ignite and fires to spread rapidly.<\/p>\n
The cause of the High Fens fire remains unknown. Firefighters have not yet been able to safely access the precise location where it began.<\/p>\n
Wildfire risk spreads across Europe<\/p>\n
Belgium’s emergency is unfolding against a wider wave of wildfires across Europe, where prolonged heat and drought have left forests and grasslands increasingly vulnerable.<\/p>\n
In France, firefighters were battling a major blaze in the southwestern Landes region, where about 17 square kilometres had burned and around 650 people had been evacuated. It was the third major wildfire in the region this summer.<\/p>\n
Earlier, a much larger fire in France’s Gironde department burned about 420 square kilometres and forced approximately 220,000 people to evacuate as flames moved towards the Atlantic coast and Bordeaux region.<\/p>\n
The United Kingdom has also faced multiple wildfires in South Wales, while fires in central England destroyed more than a dozen homes during the country’s latest heatwave.<\/p>\n
In neighbouring Germany, authorities were simultaneously dealing with a separate fire in the H\u00fcrtgen forest. Hundreds of residents who had been evacuated were able to return home after firefighters brought the blaze under control.<\/p>\n
For Belgium, however, the immediate priority remains stopping the High Fens fire from advancing further.<\/p>\n
With ground access severely restricted, the battle is increasingly moving into the skies. The arrival of international aircraft and helicopters could prove decisive in containing a blaze that has expanded dramatically in just two days.<\/p>\n
With inputs from agencies<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Belgium\u2019s largest modern-era wildfire has spread across 3,000 hectares in the High Fens, forcing evacuations as helicopters and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32838,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[17695,17691,7,17592,17690,17589,17644,17591,17570,17687,17689,17698,17596,15477,17699,17692,17700,17683,17688,17594,17590,17694,17685,17697,17696,17693],"class_list":["post-32837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-belgium","tag-aerial-firefighting-belgium","tag-belgian-wildfire","tag-belgium","tag-belgium-drought","tag-belgium-fire-evacuation","tag-belgium-forest-fire","tag-belgium-germany-border-fire","tag-belgium-heatwave","tag-belgium-wildfire","tag-belgium-wildfire-2026","tag-belgium-wildfire-latest","tag-butgenbach-wildfire","tag-climate-change-europe","tag-europe-heatwave","tag-europe-wildfire-crisis","tag-europe-wildfires-2026","tag-european-wildfires","tag-france-wildfires","tag-high-fens-fire","tag-high-fens-nature-reserve","tag-high-fens-wildfire","tag-sweden-firefighting-aircraft","tag-uk-wildfires","tag-waimes-wildfire","tag-water-bombing-aircraft","tag-wildfire-in-europe"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32837\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}