Belgium's largest wildfire in decades doubles overnight, forcing evacuations

Summary A wildfire officials describe as the largest in Belgium's recent history more than doubled in size within 24 hours, local authorities said Sunday, as hundreds of firefighters entered a third day battling flames tearing through the country's largest nature reserve. Belgian officials said intense heat combined with the reserve's difficult terrain, a mix of bog like wetlands, moorland and forest, has made the fire especially hard to contain. Belgian Interior Minister Bernard Quintin said two fronts of the fire, one advancing toward Jalhay and the other toward Monschau, have now been brought under control. AI Generated Summary A wildfire officials describe as the largest in Belgium's recent history more than doubled in size within 24 hours, local authorities said Sunday, as hundreds of firefighters entered a third day battling flames tearing through the country's largest nature reserve. The blaze has forced the evacuation of two villages near Hautes Fagnes, a protected reserve close to Belgium's eastern border with Germany. Local farmers have hauled water tankers toward the park to assist firefighting crews, while water bombing aircraft and helicopters sent from Sweden and the Netherlands have joined the effort from the air. The Belgian fire is one of several burning across Europe this weekend. At least two people died in forest fires on a Greek island off the coast of Athens on Sunday, part of a broader pattern of blazes spreading across the continent. Belgian officials said intense heat combined with the reserve's difficult terrain, a mix of bog like wetlands, moorland and forest, has made the fire especially hard to contain. According to figures reported by a French news agency citing local officials, the fire grew from 80 hectares, or about 200 acres, on Friday to 850 hectares by Saturday morning, before expanding further to 3,000 hectares by early Sunday. Belgian Interior Minister Bernard Quintin said two fronts of the fire, one advancing toward Jalhay and the other toward Monschau, have now been brought under control. Authorities said conditions remain difficult overall and that they continue to rely heavily on aerial support to bring the fire under control, though no homes have been damaged so far. Two water bombing aircraft arrived from Sweden on Sunday afternoon to reinforce four helicopters, two Belgian and two Dutch, already working the fire. Nicolas Yernaux, a spokesman for regional authorities in Wallonia, said Saturday that the blaze ranks as the largest the country has seen in recent history. He said firefighters have allowed portions of the heathland to burn because those areas are extremely difficult to reach. Rescue teams have been unable to access the location where the fire started, leaving its cause unknown for now. Additional forest fires have broken out in Croatia, Spain and Serbia since Friday, following a summer of extreme heat that has left large parts of Europe either burning or scorched brown. In southwestern France, local officials in the Landes region said a separate wildfire forced the evacuation of 650 residents on Saturday. That fire first broke out Thursday and reignited Saturday, prompting authorities to deploy more than 500 firefighters to bring it under control. The EU's climate monitoring service, Copernicus, has confirmed that western Europe just experienced its hottest June to July period on record, a finding that aligns with the wave of wildfires now spreading across multiple countries on the continent.