Hundreds evacuated as fire in Belgium’s biggest nature reserve doubles in size

Hundreds of people have been evacuated after a wildfire in Belgium more than doubled in size in 24 hours, becoming the largest in the country's history, officials said.The fire in the High Fens, Belgium's biggest nature reserve in the east near Malmedy, grew from 80 hectares on Friday to 850 by Saturday morning and had burned 3,000 hectares by Sunday. That is more than double the 1,400 hectares burned in the same area in 2011, previously the country's largest fire, according to the European Forest Fire Information System.The fire was reaching very close to Germany, authorities warned.Two villages on the Belgian side have been evacuated and residents were told not to return, though no homes have been damaged. By Sunday, the flames had advanced to within a mile of the German border."We would never have imagined that Belgium would be affected by a fire of this scale. Now, we have to face the facts," Karim Bouarfa, a fire brigade captain whose crew worked through Saturday night, told Reuters. Firefighters arrive at a command post in Eupen, amid a wildfire in the High Fens (Hautes Fagnes) region, Belgium (Reuters)"I think we will have more and more of them, so it is up to us to prepare ourselves as best as possible."Interior minister, Bernard Quintin, said two fronts had been brought under control on Sunday, but the fire continued to advance with an active front about a kilometre in length.Monschau, on the German side of the border, advised residents living nearby to leave because of smoke, though authorities do not expect the flames to cross.The terrain has made the fire hard to fight. The reserve is a mix of peat bog, moorland and forest, and firefighters have let some heathland burn where they cannot reach it. Crews have been unable to get to the point where the fire started, so its cause remains unknown.Firefighters from Germany and Luxembourg have joined the Belgian response along with the army and local farmers, who have been hauling water from a lake by tractor. Belgium activated the European Union's civil protection mechanism, and three helicopters and two water-bombing aircraft were sent from Sweden, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic."The High Fens are burning. Belgium is not facing it alone," the EU commissioner Hadja Lahbib wrote on X."The situation is extremely difficult," said Rene Dahmen, chief engineer at Wallonia's nature and forest department, as the fire moved towards a municipal forest. "We need helicopter support."Fires burned elsewhere in Europe over the weekend. Two people believed to be a couple died on Sunday on the Greek island of Salamina, a short ferry ride from Athens, where nearly 200 firefighters and 14 aircraft were deployed but strong winds drove the flames on. One person was killed and 40 treated in hospital when fires reached the Croatian coastal town of Omis, about 10 miles south of Split, destroying homes and cars and forcing more than 1,200 people out.A hundred French firefighters travelled to Aragon in Spain to help tackle a fire that has destroyed 16,600 hectares, while in the pine forests of the Landes in south-western France a blaze has burned 1,700 hectares since Thursday, forcing about 650 people from their homes. Soldiers from the Gurkha regiment have been sent to South Wales, where 14 wildfires are burning.In northern Spain, two women aged 60 and 80 were killed late on Saturday when torrential rain sent mud through the village of Manzanedo de Valdueza, near Ponferrada, burying streets and cars.Western Europe has just had its hottest June and July on record, according to the EU's Copernicus climate monitoring service, and successive heatwaves have left vegetation across the continent dry enough to burn. Scientists say the climate crisis has made the hot, dry conditions that let fires spread faster and burn for longer more likely.