{"id":33395,"date":"2026-08-18T16:43:45","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T16:43:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/33395\/"},"modified":"2026-08-18T16:43:45","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T16:43:45","slug":"rainfall-aids-fight-against-belgiums-biggest-wildfire-as-blazes-rip-through-europe-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/33395\/","title":{"rendered":"Rainfall aids fight against Belgium\u2019s biggest wildfire as blazes rip through Europe"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

A Belgian firefighter extinguishes a wildfire in a forest in Waimes, Belgium, Monday.Yves Herman\/Reuters<\/p>\n

Rain over eastern Belgium on Monday morning aided firefighters battling to contain the country\u2019s biggest wildfire on record, which had threatened to reach the German border.<\/p>\n

Wildfires have ripped through Europe this summer after successive severe heatwaves, fuelled by climate change, have intensified drought and left vegetation tinder-dry. Fires have now burned 576,000 hectares in Europe this year, data from the European Forest Fire Information System showed \u2013 an area twice the size of Luxembourg.<\/p>\n

Over the weekend, an elderly couple died as fires swept through the Greek island of Salamina, where 500 people were evacuated by ferry after gale force winds pushed a wildfire towards residential areas, damaging houses. A blaze in Aragon, in northeastern Spain, destroyed 16,600 hectares, while a fire in the tourist town of Omis, Croatia, forced 1,000 people to evacuate.<\/p>\n

In Belgium, weather agency IRM said between 5 and 9 millimetres of rain was forecast on Monday in the High Fens, a nature reserve in the east of Belgium which has been burning since Friday. The local temperature was set to fall to around 20 degrees Celsius, having breached 30 C last week in a heat wave that saw parts of Belgium hit temperatures of 37 C.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis will change everything; in addition to the water associated with rainfall, there will also be an increase in humidity levels,\u201d fire department captain Olivier Guist told Belgian radio station RTBF.<\/p>\n

Despite the dip in temperatures, large swathes of western, southern and central Europe were still at high risk of wildfires on Monday, EFFIS data showed.<\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Smoke hangs over houses in Kalterherberg near Monschau, western Germany, close to the border with Belgium.INA FASSBENDER\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Fire season far from over<\/p>\n

Extreme fire risk has become a regular part of Europe\u2019s summers in recent years, as hotter, drier weather caused by climate change has combined with other factors \u2013 including rural abandonment, which has left land untended and allowed flammable, dry vegetation to build up in forests \u2013 to fuel fast-spreading fires.<\/p>\n

Around 90 per cent of wildfires are ignited by human activity, such as campfires or discarded cigarettes.<\/p>\n

Europe had already suffered its worst fire season on record last year, with more than a million hectares of land burned. Some countries, including France, have smashed through their annual records this year, with the traditional June-September fire season far from over.<\/p>\n

Dozens of people in the village Le Porge, in southwestern France, where hundreds of homes were destroyed by a megafire last month, booed French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu as he visited the area. Residents have criticized the government\u2019s response and accused authorities of prioritizing saving wealthier areas.<\/p>\n

Belgian officials said the blaze there was no longer spreading towards Germany and was partly contained. Evacuated residents have not yet been allowed to return home.<\/p>\n

Some 500 firefighters from across the country and neighbouring Germany and Luxembourg, alongside farmers and the army, have been battling the fire. It has burned about 3,000 hectares in the nature reserve of moorland, peat and woods \u2013 far surpassing Belgium\u2019s last record-breaking fire in 2011, which burned close to 1,400 hectares.<\/p>\n

The EU has deployed three helicopters and two water bombing aircraft from around Europe since Saturday after Belgium requested emergency reinforcements. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: A Belgian firefighter extinguishes a wildfire in a forest in Waimes, Belgium, Monday.Yves…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33396,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[14944,14934,14945,7,2894,14928,14946,210,14927,14939,14940,14936,14929,14926,447,897,319,14938,14933,14956,14930,14931,493,14935,267,7299,3735,14152,14951,14952,14954,14949,14953,14947,14950,6666,14942,14943,192,14941,14948,1816,86,54,14937,14932,142,14955],"class_list":["post-33395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-belgium","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-belgium","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"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\/33395","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=33395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}