Firefighters in eastern Belgium are battling the largest wildfire the country has recorded in its modern history, with the blaze having burned through more than 27 square kilometers of protected nature reserve as of Sunday and showing no signs of being fully contained.
The fire broke out on Friday in the High Fens, a vast nature reserve of peatlands and pine forest near the German border, and spread rapidly through the following days as hot, dry conditions fed the flames. By Saturday evening, officials in the Liège province said the fire had already scorched around 2,700 hectares, up sharply from roughly 1,600 hectares earlier the same day.
Hundreds Told To Leave Their Homes
As shifting winds pushed smoke into nearby communities, authorities ordered around 600 residents in the municipalities of Waimes and Bütgenbach to evacuate. Tourists in the area were also advised to leave, and a nearby gymnasium was opened to house people displaced by the fire. Local officials warned that unnecessary traffic in the area could hamper the movement of emergency vehicles and complicate an already difficult firefighting effort.
Liège's provincial governor said more than 250 emergency personnel had been deployed to fight the blaze, including over 100 firefighters from both Belgium and neighboring Germany, alongside police, military units and civil protection staff.
Europe Steps In
Given the scale of the fire, Belgium activated the European Union's civil protection mechanism to bring in outside help. Helicopters and water-bomber aircraft were deployed from Czechia, Sweden and the Netherlands to assist Belgian crews already on the ground, underscoring just how significant the blaze has become relative to the country's usual firefighting capacity.
A spokesperson for the regional authorities in Wallonia said the fire had not yet been brought under control as of the weekend, and cautioned that the terrain itself was making the job harder. Much of the affected area consists of difficult-to-access peatland and dense forest, conditions that limit how directly emergency crews can approach the flames.
The Worst Since 1911
Officials have described the current blaze as Belgium's largest wildfire in modern memory, far surpassing a 2011 fire in the same region that had previously held the record after burning close to 14 square kilometers. Historical accounts point to a comparable fire in 1911, during a similarly extreme period of heat and drought, as the last time this particular landscape saw destruction on this scale.
Officials cited unusually dry soil conditions this year as a key factor in why the fire has spread faster and burned deeper than the historical comparison from 2011, even though both blazes struck the same general area.
Part Of A Wider Pattern
The Belgian fire comes amid a broader run of extreme heat and wildfire activity across Western Europe this summer, with France, England and other parts of the continent also dealing with record temperatures and elevated fire risk in recent weeks. For a country not typically associated with large-scale wildfires, the scale of the High Fens blaze has become a stark example of how climate-driven extremes are increasingly showing up in places that historically haven't had to plan for them.
As of Sunday, firefighters remained focused on containment rather than declaring the fire under control, with authorities continuing to monitor wind patterns that could either help crews gain ground or push the blaze toward populated areas nearby.