EU sends aircraft, villages evacuated as Belgium fights record wildfire
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A Belgian police helicopter preparing to drop water over a wildfire in Belgium’s High Fens nature reserve on Aug 14.
PHOTO: AFP
- The EU sent three helicopters and two water bomber aircraft from Czech Republic, Sweden, and the Netherlands to help fight Belgium's largest recorded wildfire in the High Fens nature reserve.
- The wildfire has burned 1,600 hectares since August 14, surpassing the 2011 record and forcing evacuations in parts of Liege province due to changing winds and smoke.
- Belgium and other European countries are experiencing a fifth summer heatwave, with climate change increasing wildfire risks, prompting coordinated EU emergency response efforts.
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BRUSSELS - The European Union deployed three helicopters and two water-bomber aircraft to tackle Belgium’s biggest wildfire on record on Aug 15, as the local authorities told residents in some villages to leave their homes.
The blaze in the High Fens, a nature reserve in the east of the country, has been burning since Aug 14, and firefighters from across Belgium and neighbouring Germany and Luxembourg have sought to contain it, as have the army and farmers.
By 4pm GMT, it had burned 2,700ha, the office of the governor of Liege said in an update on the evening of Aug 15 – indicating the fire was spreading, having increased from 1,600ha earlier in the day.
That makes the fire by far the biggest on record in Belgium – nearly double the size of a blaze in 2011 that burned close to 1,400ha, data from the European Forest Fire Information System showed.
Local authorities asked residents of several villages to evacuate their homes as a precaution on Aug 15, due to changing winds and smoke in the area.
Tourists staying in the area were advised to leave, while a children’s summer camp was also evacuated, Belgian Defence Minister Theo Francken said in a post on X.
The terrain of the nature reserve made it difficult for emergency services to attack the fire at close range using their usual resources, the Liege governor’s office noted.
European countries including Belgium suffered their fifth heatwave of the summer this week.
Scientists say human-caused climate change has increased the likelihood of the hot and dry conditions that allow wildfires to spread faster and burn longer.
The blaze in the High Fens – Belgium’s largest nature reserve – has been burning since Aug 14.
PHOTO: AFP
The EU coordinates the deployment of extra resources pooled from European countries, when a country requests emergency help.
The aircraft sent to Belgium on Aug 15 were from the Czech Republic, Sweden and the Netherlands, EU Crisis Commissioner Hadja Lahbib said in a post on X. REUTERS
