HAUTES FAGNES/HOGE VENEN, Aug 17 — Rain over eastern Belgium on Monday morning helped firefighters contain the country's biggest wildfire on record, which had threatened to reach the German border.
Wildfires have ripped through Europe this summer after successive severe heatwaves, fuelled by climate change, have intensified drought and left vegetation tinder-dry. The European Forest Fire Information System's (EFFIS) data revealed that fires have now burned 576,000 hectares in Europe this year, an area twice the size of Luxembourg.
Over the weekend, an elderly couple died as fires swept through the Greek island of Salamina, where 500 people were evacuated by ferry after gale-force winds pushed a wildfire towards residential areas, damaging houses. A blaze in Aragon, in northeastern Spain, destroyed 16,600 hectares, while a fire in the tourist town of Omiš, Croatia, forced 1,000 people to evacuate.
In Belgium, weather agency IRM said between 5mm and 9mm of rain was forecast on Monday in the High Fens, a nature reserve in eastern Belgium that has been burning since Friday. Local temperatures were set to fall to around 20°C, after breaching 30°C last week in a heatwave that saw parts of Belgium hit 37°C.
"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.
Despite the dip in temperatures, EFFIS data also indicated that large swathes of western, southern, and central Europe are still at high risk of wildfires on Monday.
Fire season far from over
Extreme fire risk has become a regular part of Europe's summers in recent years, as hotter, drier weather caused by climate change has combined with other factors — including rural abandonment, which has left land untended and allowed flammable, dry vegetation to build up in forests — to fuel fast-spreading fires.
Around 90 per cent of wildfires are ignited by human activity, such as campfires or discarded cigarettes.
Europe has already suffered its worst fire season on record last year, with more than a million hectares of land burned. Some countries, including France, have smashed through their annual records this year, with the traditional June-September fire season far from over.
Dozens of people in the village of Le Porge, in southwestern France, where hundreds of homes were destroyed by a megafire last month, booed French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu as he visited the area. Residents have criticised the government's response and accused authorities of prioritising saving wealthier areas.
Belgian officials said the blaze there was no longer spreading towards Germany and was partly contained. Evacuated residents have not yet been allowed to return home.
Some 500 firefighters from across the country and neighbouring Germany and Luxembourg, along with farmers and the Army, have been battling the fire. It has burned about 3,000 hectares in the nature reserve of moorland, peat and woods — far surpassing Belgium's last record-breaking fire in 2011, which burned close to 1,400 hectares.
The European Union has deployed three helicopters and two water bombing aircraft from around Europe since Saturday after Belgium requested emergency reinforcements.
