Wildfire Engulfs Belgium's High Fens Nature Reserve, Prompting Evacuations
A large blaze in Belgium's High Fens reserve forced evacuations of two villages and drew international aerial support, with officials calling it the country's biggest fire in recent years.
Firefighters were battling a wildfire that had spread across roughly one-third of the High Fens, Belgium's largest nature reserve, on Saturday. The blaze, which started on Thursday and reignited on Saturday, prompted the evacuation of two nearby villages as authorities warned the flames could reach residential areas.
Water-bombing aircraft and helicopters from Sweden, the Czech Republic and the Netherlands were deployed to assist local crews, while more than 500 firefighters worked on the ground. The terrain, consisting of bogs, moorland and forest, complicated suppression efforts, and shifting winds further hampered progress.
"There is a risk that the fire could reach homes, but we are deploying all available resources to protect them," said Nicolas Yernaux, a spokesperson for Wallonia's regional authorities, who described the incident as the country's largest in recent history.
Firefighter Gregory Melotte told Belgian broadcaster RTBF that crews had succeeded in containing the fire on the plain and preventing it from advancing into fir forest, but warned that the situation remained fluid as wind directions changed.
The High Fens blaze was part of a broader wave of forest fires affecting several European countries, including France, Croatia, Spain and Serbia, after a summer marked by extreme heat.