Firefighters launched a potentially decisive push to encircle Belgium’s largest wildfire in a century on Tuesday, despite wind and rain hampering air support operations over the High Fens nature reserve.
The blaze charring the vast expanse of boggy peatlands, pine trees and hiking trails grew over the weekend to half the size of Manhattan with hundreds of firefighters working night and day to wrestle it under control.
“We are trying to definitively encircle the fire today,” regional government spokesperson Nicolas Yernaux told the AFP news agency.
In areas where firefighters could operate, he confirmed the fire was “under control and contained.”
But a hard-to-access front towards the German border remains a concern, with some residents in the border town of Monschau already under evacuation orders due to the smoke hazard.
Firefighters worked through the night to make a crucial link-up between the eastern and northern fronts, under very difficult access conditions.
“We’re talking about one or two kilometres and we’re on the verge of achieving it,” Yernaux told AFP, despite “sustained winds” blowing towards the German border.
Water-bombing aircraft from several countries have been deployed, with two Norwegian helicopters the latest to fly in on Monday night, but they have been repeatedly grounded by low cloud and rain. There are also aircraft from Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands.
Yernaux said it was unclear given weather conditions when they would be able to take off again.
“There may be windows of opportunity this morning, but it may not be before tonight.”
A huge area has been blanketed by a thick plume of yellowish smoke, with fumes detected as far as eastern France, where authorities issued an air-pollution alert.
The smoke triggered evacuations in one Belgian village and two hamlets of a second, with residents of the hamlet of Sourbrodt given the green light to return home on Monday night.
The finish line
Europe has been swept by weeks of devastating wildfires fuelled by dry conditions and a historically hot summer, with France, Greece, Portugal and Spain also battling major fires.
The High Fens blaze broke out in an area that was ravaged by massive fires in 1911, during a similar period of heatwaves.
It is the country’s largest wildfire since.
During a visit on site with King Philippe on Monday, Belgium’s interior minister Bernard Quintin told media it could take “several weeks” of soaking and dousing the area to prevent the fire from reigniting, even once brought under control.
On-site operations have been made much harder by the fens’ terrain, a patchwork of heath, peat bogs and raised wooden boardwalks where heavy vehicles risk sinking into the ground, and firefighters struggle to tackle the fire at close range.
They have been counting heavily on aerial assistance to bring the situation under control.
Local farmers have also poured in to help, working shifts to oversee a ballet of tractors pulling in tankers of water from a nearby lake.
“We’ll take it in turns as long as it needs, the team is all set,” a farmer from nearby Waremme, told AFP. “We’ll keep going until the finish line.”
Like much of Europe, Belgium has experienced a new spell of intense heat and drought in recent days.
Temperatures reached as high as 37C in some parts of the country last week, creating conditions conducive to wildfire outbreaks.
Additional sources • AFP