Largest forest fire in North Rhine-Westphalia officially extinguished after week-long blaze

The largest forest fire in North Rhine-Westphalia is officially over. Firefighters discovered embers under individual trees until the very end. Residents are shocked.

21 August 2026 | 3:08 PM

Searching for residual embers: A firefighter on Thursday in the Hürtgen Forest. Photo: Friedrich Kraft

From Gey

By Friedrich Kraft

"There, an active ember nest!" Leo stops the quad. The firefighter's outstretched hand points to a light but clearly visible wisp of smoke. Between the trees, in the light of the sun breaking through the forest, it curls upward. Leo gets off, grabs a shovel from the small cargo area of the quad, and moves in for a closer look. "Always watch the wind," he says over his shoulder, "the trees here can fall at any time. Completely charred from the inside, you often can't tell."

For a week, a fire raged here in the Hürtgen Forest. It literally burned into the ground and into the trees. The firefighter points to a spruce tree. It is still standing. But the fire has eaten deep into it from below; it lives in its trunk, which has become a smoldering coal nest. A short gust of wind — Leo's gaze turns to the treetop — but below, at the base of the spruce, it briefly glows. Between gray-black coal remnants, you can see it for a moment: active embers. It is the danger that lurks in the forest even days after the sea of flames.

On Thursday a week ago, it all started somewhere here, in the forest 20 kilometers as the crow flies from Aachen in the far west of North Rhine-Westphalia. At first, it wasn't unusual for a summer, says Leo. "We have small ground fires regularly." They always manage to handle those with the volunteer fire department, which is all they have here. But last week, "was quickly something different." A crown fire — a fire that spread uncontrollably, devouring the forest. And then it came dangerously close to the village of Gey. It became the largest forest fire in the history of the largest federal state.

By now, the open flames have been extinguished for days. But the fire has not yet been completely driven out of the forest. The final battle is being waged from the air via drone and on reconnaissance trips like this one. And this Thursday, the "lid is supposed to be put on."

Apocalyptically Charred Trees

"It already looks completely different here today than yesterday," firefighter Leo shouts over the roar of the quad's engine as he maneuvers it through the forest around midday. "All new firebreaks have been cut so we can finally get everywhere." He briefly considers: now right or left? The surroundings look apocalyptic — charred trees, the ground in many places a single black, charred surface. Softened and muddy from millions of liters of water, dropped by helicopters and pumped through kilometers of hoses laid into the forest to fight the fires.

Resident Helge reports on the hours of the fire outbreak on the afternoon of August 13. He lives in the last house before the forest. Right opposite his driveway winds the path that would become the central defense line for the village of Gey, leading into the forest.

He watched as the volunteer fire department first entered the forest, but then also came back out. "I don't want to say 'fled,'" Helge recounts, but the following announcement was clear: "Guys, get out of here!" He and his wife then packed the most important things into their cars and brought the motorhome parked in the driveway "down to the village" to safety.

Helge wasn't the only one who had to leave. In the forest section right opposite Helge's driveway, the front line in the battle against the flames formed. The fire spread more and more rapidly. In the middle of the night last Thursday, the decision was made: The entire village must be evacuated. Around 1,800 people were asked to leave their homes via loudspeaker announcements. When the town was empty, pets were evacuated afterwards. Within a few hours, Gey had become a frontline location in a developing major incident situation with crisis teams reaching into NRW ministries.

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When Helge, with his...