Largest forest fire in NRW history contained; Belgian blaze approaches German border

Photo: Christoph Reichwein / dpa

From Bonn Tobias Müller

It was a weekend full of flames. Barely 50 kilometers as the crow flies separate the fire sources in the Eifel town of Hürtgenwald near Düren from the Hohe Venn just behind the Belgian border. The former was the largest forest fire in the history of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), which had kept 1,800 rescue workers on alert since Thursday.

The fire is now under control, though not yet fully extinguished. Evacuated residents in the Gey district were able to return to their homes on Saturday evening. They had been rescued on Friday under extremely unfavorable extinguishing conditions, with strong and shifting winds.

Meanwhile, a second fire broke out in the Hohe Venn nature area, which extends on both sides of the border with Belgium. It spread so quickly that by Sunday it had covered an area of 3,000 hectares on the Belgian side, according to the responsible province of Liège. That corresponds to approximately 4,200 football fields. The German-language newspaper Grenzecho, published in the region, described it as "an unprecedented scale in Belgium so far."

Fire Front One Kilometer Wide

The one-kilometer-wide fire front expanded over the weekend, fanned by the wind, to just short of the German border. By Sunday afternoon, it was only one and a half kilometers away. As early as Saturday, several hundred people in two Belgian border municipalities had been evacuated as a precaution.

The city of Monschau, located just behind the border, also called on residents of several neighborhoods in the evening to prepare for evacuation. However, because the fire did not move further east on Sunday afternoon, there was no further reason to do so by editorial deadline.

Instead, the approximately 5,000 people in the districts of Mützenich and Kalterherberg are advised to leave due to health-damaging smoke development. The city of Monschau warns of "heavy pollution from fire smoke," for which it provides a contact point for "residents of border-adjacent areas." In large parts of the Belgian region of Wallonia, "air quality is currently very poor due to high fine particulate concentrations," reports the Interregional Environment Agency (IRCEL).

Wind Complicates Extinguishing

On Sunday as well, two factors hampered firefighting efforts in the Hohe Venn:

• The wind, which picked up again after a calmer night
• The inaccessibility of the terrain

The fire sources in the moor and heath area are partly unreachable for conventional firefighting vehicles, which is why helicopters are primarily used for extinguishing. On Sunday, there was hope for upcoming support from Swedish firefighting aircraft; Dutch and German teams are already deployed.

Richard Kraai, a member of a Dutch helicopter team, told the German-language Belgian broadcaster BRF that the scale of the fire in particular made extinguishing difficult. The fire in the Hohe Venn, which has also affected peat, is about ten times larger than the one in Hürtgenwald. The heavy smoke development adds further complexity: on Sunday morning, the start of firefighting operations was delayed for this reason.

What damage the fire will cause to the unique high moor area of the Hohe Venn is currently not foreseeable. The landscape is unique in Central Europe. The fire has not yet been brought under control; a shifting wind again and the forests to the east could also pose a more concrete danger for North Rhine-Westphalia.

SPD Wants Action Plan Against Heat

In some western parts of the federal state, a smell of fire was in the air, especially at the beginning of the weekend. A smoke cloud moved over the Rhineland, and emergency numbers were overloaded. Meanwhile, no further danger is expected from Hürtgenwald. The district of Düren states that the affected area has been secured with a three-meter-wide cut.