Water-bombing aircraft and farmers’ tractors joined forces Sunday to help firefighters tame Belgium’s largest modern-day wildfire, which has scorched vast swathes of a hard-to-reach nature reserve near the German border.<\/p>\n
The blaze has mushroomed to 3,000 hectares (7,500 acres) two days after breaking out in the High Fens park, an area of boggy peatlands and pine forests popular with hikers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Area firefighting chief Luc Burette said that “if we cannot contain the fire” there was a risk it could spill over the German border just a stone’s throw to the east.<\/p>\n
“We’re hanging in there, because everyone wants this fire put out,” Gregory Melotte, one of several hundred firefighters and emergency workers deployed on site, told AFP. He was working his third shift in as many days.<\/p>\n
“We’ve really limited the damage to stop it from taking hold in the tall fir trees” — but the blaze was not yet “under control”, he conceded.<\/p>\n
A huge area straddling the border has been blanketed by a thick plume of yellowish smoke, prompting the partial evacuation of two Belgian villages. Around 20 people spent the night in a local sports hall.<\/p>\n
– Local farmers join fight –<\/p>\n
The German town of Monschau also advised residents living closest to the fire to evacuate — saying the front was just 1.8 kilometres (1.1 mile) from the first inhabited areas.<\/p>\n
Water-bearing Chinook helicopters flown in from the Netherlands were spearheading the effort.<\/p>\n
But local farmers have also poured in to help battle the blaze, with a ballet of tractors pulling in tankers of water drawn from a nearby lake.<\/p>\n
“Right now there are about 15 tractors queuing to fill up,” Jean-Pierre Robert, who manages a lakeside hotel, told AFP.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“We moved our cows, and opened up all our fences to give them access.”<\/p>\n
Authorities described the conditions Sunday as still “challenging”. But Interior Minister Bernard Quintin saod two of the fire fronts — heading towards the localities of Jalhay and Monschau — were now “under control”.<\/p>\n
The blaze broke out for reasons still unknown in an area that was ravaged by massive fires in 1911, during a similar period of heatwaves and drought — and is the country’s largest wildfire since then.<\/p>\n
Fumes have reached the neighbouring Belgian province of Namur, and even as far as eastern France where the Moselle department triggered an air-pollution alert.<\/p>\n
On site, the shifting winds have complicated firefighters’ efforts but the Liege governor’s office said that “the defensive line protecting evacuated areas is holding”.<\/p>\n
“No homes have been affected at this stage, although the fire remains close and smoke levels are significant,” it added.<\/p>\n
– Help from the skies –<\/p>\n
Firefighters from all over Belgium as well as from Germany have deployed across the zone, supported by next-generation fire engines.<\/p>\n
But authorities said operations were “particularly complex” because of the fens’ terrain — a patchwork of heath, peat bogs and raised wooden boardwalks where heavy vehicles risk sinking into the ground, and firefighters struggle to tackle the fire at close range.<\/p>\n
They were counting heavily on aerial assistance to bring the situation under control.<\/p>\n
Two water-bombing aircraft arrived Sunday from Sweden and got to work, backing up four helicopters — two Belgian and two Dutch — already on site.<\/p>\n
A liaison officer was coordinating the aerial resources “to prevent accidents”, EU commissioner Hadja Lahbib told AFP.<\/p>\n
Prime Minister Bart De Wever has thanked Belgium’s European partners for the assistance.<\/p>\n
Like much of Europe, Belgium has experienced a new spell of intense heat and drought in recent days.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Temperatures reached as high as 37C in some parts of the country on Friday, creating conditions conducive to wildfire outbreaks.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But rescue teams have been unable to access the area where the High Fens fire first broke out, meaning its precise cause remains unknown.<\/p>\n
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