Belgium has turned to the EU civil protection mechanism for aerial firefighting support after a blaze in the High Fens nature reserve became the largest wildfire on record in the country.
Three helicopters and two water-bombing aircraft from the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Sweden were deployed from August 15 under the mechanism, which allows a member state to request assistance coordinated by the European Commission.
The fire broke out on August 14 in the reserve in Liège province, eastern Belgium, and had burned about 3,000 hectares by August 16. That is more than twice the area of the previous Belgian record, a 2011 blaze that consumed close to 1,400 hectares, according to European Forest Fire Information System data.
European Commissioner for Preparedness and Crisis Management Hadja Lahbib said on X that “Belgium is not facing it alone”. Prime Minister Bart De Wever thanked European partners for their assistance in a post on the same platform.
More than 250 emergency personnel were deployed, Liège provincial governor Hervé Jamar said, including firefighters from Germany and Luxembourg alongside military units, federal police and civil protection staff.
Operations have been slowed by the terrain, a patchwork of heath, peat bogs and raised wooden boardwalks where heavy vehicles risk sinking into the ground. Firefighters have been unable to tackle much of the fire at close range, leaving aircraft and farmers’ tractor-hauled water tankers as the main tools.
Belgian interior minister Bernard Quintin told broadcaster RTL that the winds had shifted through a full 360 degrees in the course of a single day, making the direction of the spread impossible to predict.
Two fronts, one heading towards Jalhay and one towards the German town of Monschau, were brought under control on August 16, Quintin said. The blaze continued to move south-southeast that evening.
About 600 residents of Waimes and Bütgenbach were told to leave their homes on August 15 and had not returned the following day. No houses had been damaged, though smoke remained heavy across the area and a reception centre was opened at a sports hall in Malmedy.
German authorities said the fire had come within 1.5km of the border. The mayor’s office in Monschau ordered the evacuation of two streets late on August 16.
The Liège public prosecutor has opened an investigation into the cause of the fire, which remains unknown because crews cannot reach the spot where it started.
Temperatures reached about 37C in parts of Belgium on August 14 during Europe’s fifth heatwave of the summer. The EU mechanism has been called on repeatedly this season, including by France in July and by Spain, where rescEU amphibious aircraft from Greece and Italy were deployed.
