HIGH FENS NATIONAL PARK, Belgium, Aug 17 (Reuters) – Rain started falling on Monday morning over eastern Belgium, bringing crucial help to firefighters who have been battling to contain Belgium’s biggest ever wildfire which has threatened to reach the German border.
The Belgian weather agency IRM expects between 5 and 9 millimetres of rain over the area and further rainfall on Tuesday. The temperature in the High Fens, a nature reserve in the east of Belgium burning since Friday, is set to fall to between 19 and 20 degrees Celsius (66 to 68 Fahrenheit).
“This will change everything; in addition to the water associated with rainfall, there will also be an increase in humidity levels,” fire department captain Olivier Guist told Belgian radio station RTBF.
Some 500 firefighters from across the country and neighbouring Germany and Luxembourg are on the ground to limit a blaze that has already burned about 3,000 hectares (7,400 acres) in the scarcely populated area of hills covered by moorland, peat and woods.
Across Europe, successive heatwaves have intensified drought and left vegetation tinder-dry, fuelling severe wildfires and making even generally wet areas, like High Fens, vulnerable.
Local authorities ordered the evacuation of some 600 people in the towns of Butgenbach and Waimes on Saturday and have told them they should not yet return to their homes.
Local prosecutors have opened an investigation into the cause of the blaze.
The German town of Monschau on Sunday asked residents near the border with Belgium to leave, noting that the fire was not expected to enter German territory but significant smoke pollution was likely.
The EU deployed three helicopters and two water bombing aircraft from around Europe since Saturday after Belgium requested emergency reinforcements.
The wildfire is the country’s biggest on record, more than double the size of a blaze in 2011 that burned close to 1,400 hectares, data from the European Forest Fire Information System showed.
(Reporting by Bart Biesemans, Yves Herman, writing by Inti Landauro; Editing by Toby Chopra)
Comments