Wildfires Rage Across Belgium, Greece and Other Parts of Europe

Firefighters are battling a large wildfire that has consumed about 30 square kilometres of the High Fens nature reserve in eastern Belgium, one of the country's worst in recent years. Around 600 residents of the nearby towns of Waimes and Bütgenbach were ordered to evacuate on Saturday as shifting winds spread smoke, and a local gym was opened as a shelter.

"More than 250 emergency personnel have been deployed, including over 100 Belgian and German firefighters, police, military officers and civil protection staff," Liège provincial governor Hervé Jamar said. Helicopters from Belgium’s federal police and the Netherlands, as well as aircraft from Sweden, the Czech Republic and the Netherlands, have been dispatched under the EU civil-protection mechanism. In Greece, a wildfire on the island of Salamina, west of Athens, killed two people whose bodies were found in the village of Peristeria. Strong winds drove the fire rapidly toward residential areas, prompting the evacuation of about 500 beachgoers by coast-guard vessels. "These conditions enabled the fire to quickly reach dangerous proportions and spread rapidly within seven minutes toward nearby residential areas," Fire Brigadier General Vasileios Vathrakogiannis said. Around 260 Greek firefighters, including ground crews, aircraft and helicopters, are responding to the blaze. The Belgian fire has surpassed a 2011 blaze that burned 14 square kilometres, according to the European Forest Fire Information System. "We’re dealing with something much deeper because we have very dry soil," Nicolas Yernaux, a spokesperson for the Public Service of Wallonia, said. Efforts to contain the fire are hampered by the peat-rich terrain of the High Fens. Belgian interior minister Bernard Quintin reported that the fire has been kept from spreading toward the German border, where it lies about 1.5 kilometres away. Local farmers from Belgium and Germany have also assisted by filling tanker trucks with lake water for firefighting use. Other European regions are also facing wildfires. In southwestern France, about 650 people have been evacuated as a pine-forest fire burned roughly 17 square kilometres. The United Kingdom is fighting 14 wildfires in South Wales, and Germany’s Hürtgen Forest fire has been largely contained, allowing thousands of evacuated residents to return home.