BAELEN, Belgium (AP) — Firefighters battled a massive wildfire in eastern Belgium on Sunday that has burned more than 27 square kilometers (10 square miles) in the High Fens, a large nature reserve, in one of the country’s worst wildfires in recent history.
About 600 residents in nearby municipalities in Waimes and Bütgenbach, in Liège 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.
Liège provincial governor Hervé Jamar said in a statement Sunday that more than 250 emergency personnel have been deployed, including over 100 Belgian and German firefighters, police and military officers and civil protection staff, helped by firefighting helicopters operated by Belgium’s federal police and the Netherlands,
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.
Belgium activated the European Union’s civil protection mechanism to receive assistance from other countries, EU Commissioner Hadja Lahbib, who is in charge of crisis management, said on X.
“The High Fens are burning. Belgium is not facing it alone,” Lahbib said. Sweden sent two water-bombing aircraft, while three helicopters — two from the Netherlands and one from the Czech Republic — were also being deployed.
The fire follows weeks of unusually hot and dry weather. The High Fens’ mix of heathland and peat bogs has complicated efforts to contain the flames.
The blaze has far surpassed a 2011 fire that burned nearly 14 square kilometers (5.4 square miles) in the same area and had been Belgium’s previous largest on record, according to data from the European Forest Fire Information System.
In the nearby town of Monschau, in Germany, local authorities warned overnight that the fire was about 3 kilometers (2 miles) from the border and said firefighters were on alert. Early Sunday morning, the town website recommended that people in three outlying districts near the border leave the area temporarily because officials couldn’t rule out health risks caused by smoke.
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.
In France, firefighters battling a wildfire in a pine forest in the southwestern Landes region faced no major flare-ups overnight, Landes Prefect Gilles Clavreul said. Authorities estimated the total area burned at 17 square kilometers (6.6 square miles), while about 650 people had been evacuated from their homes.
“The situation is developing rather favorably,” Clavreul told reporters Sunday.
It was the third major wildfire in the vast pine forests of southwestern France this summer, following two others in late July. A massive wildfire in the neighboring Gironde department burned about 420 square kilometers (162 square miles) and forced the evacuation of about 220,000 people as it spread toward the Atlantic coast and the Bordeaux area.
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Corbet reported from Paris. AP writer Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed.
