Belgium’s worst wildfire scorches 2,000 hectares in High Fens

Belgium is battling its largest wildfire on record, with a vast swathe of the country’s eastern High Fens region reduced to charred earth as fierce winds fan the flames and hamper efforts to bring the inferno under control.

By Saturday evening, the blaze had devoured nearly 2,000 hectares of vegetation, according to local authorities. The Walloon Public Service confirmed that the fire had set a national record for the largest area ever burned by a wildfire in Belgium.

The inferno erupted around 2 pm on Friday and continued to rage nearly 30 hours later, forcing authorities to evacuate hundreds of residents from communities close to the flames.

Around 600 people have been moved to safety, including about 500 residents of Sourbrodt in the municipality of Waimes and another 100 from Butgenbach. Evacuation orders covered 15 streets in Sourbrodt and seven in Butgenbach.

With strong winds threatening to breathe fresh life into the advancing flames, firefighters remained locked in a race against time. Belgium deployed three helicopters and sent three military Panther firefighting vehicles to strengthen the ground response.

The scale of the emergency has also prompted an international response. Belgium activated the EU Civil Protection Mechanism, bringing in firefighting support from across Europe. Two Dutch military helicopters, a Czech firefighting helicopter and two Swedish firefighting aircraft were deployed to help contain the blaze.

Earlier, Belgium had requested additional aerial firefighting assistance from the EU fleet, with aircraft and helicopters heading towards the country on Saturday.

The fire remained out of control on Saturday afternoon, while authorities in the affected municipalities kept residents on high alert. The mayoralties of Waimes and Jalhay described the blaze as the worst fire in Belgian history, underscoring the extraordinary scale of the disaster.

For communities on the edge of the High Fens, the landscape has become a theatre of smoke, flames and uncertainty, as firefighters battle shifting winds and a rapidly spreading inferno to prevent Belgium’s record wildfire from consuming even more of the region.

With IANS inputs