BAELEN: Firefighters battled a massive wildfire in eastern Belgium on Sunday that has burned about 30 square kilometers (12 square miles) in the High Fens, a large nature reserve, in one of the country\u2019s worst wildfires in recent history.<\/p>\n
About 600 residents in the nearby municipalities of Waimes and B\u00fctgenbach, in Li\u00e8ge province near the German border, were told to evacuate Saturday as winds shifted and smoke spread through the area. Authorities also advised tourists to leave, while a nearby gymnasium was opened to receive evacuees.<\/p>\n
Li\u00e8ge provincial governor Herv\u00e9 Jamar said in a statement Sunday that more than 250 emergency personnel have been deployed, including over 100 Belgian and German firefighters, as well as police and military officers and civil protection staff. Firefighting helicopters operated by Belgium\u2019s federal police and the Netherlands also helped.<\/p>\n
Ren\u00e9 Dahmen, chief engineer at the Department of Nature and Forest, said the fire was still spreading Sunday in an area that was difficult for crews to reach.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn the eastern flank, there\u2019s a line at least a kilometer long where the fire is slowly advancing toward a municipal forest,\u201d Dahmen said. \u201cThat\u2019s the first priority now; we deployed resources last night, and the firefighters are ready, in case it gets too close.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe situation is extremely difficult,\u201d Dahmen added. \u201cWe need helicopter support.\u201d<\/p>\n
Authorities said no homes had been affected as of Sunday morning, though the fire remained close to residential areas and heavy smoke persisted. They urged people to stay away from the fire zone, warning that unnecessary traffic could obstruct emergency vehicles and complicate firefighting operations.<\/p>\n
European countries send firefighting aircraft<\/p>\n
Belgium activated the European Union\u2019s civil protection mechanism to receive assistance from other countries, EU Commissioner Hadja Lahbib, who is in charge of crisis management, said on X.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe High Fens are burning. Belgium is not facing it alone,\u201d Lahbib said. Sweden sent two water-bombing aircraft, while three helicopters \u2014 two from the Netherlands and one from the Czech Republic \u2014 were also being deployed.<\/p>\n
The fire follows weeks of unusually hot and dry weather. The High Fens\u2019 mix of heathland and peat bogs has complicated efforts to contain the flames.<\/p>\n
Belgium was hit by another spell of intense heat this week, with temperatures reaching about 37 C (98.6 F) in parts of the country Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BAELEN: Firefighters battled a massive wildfire in eastern Belgium on Sunday that has burned about 30 square kilometers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32908,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[17691,7,14546],"class_list":["post-32907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-belgium","tag-belgian-wildfire","tag-belgium","tag-firefighters"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@be\/117106476567184255","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32907","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=32907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32907\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}