Updated

Updated · The Guardian · Aug 18

Belgian Firefighters Push to Encircle 3,000-Hectare Wildfire as Rain Hampers Air Support

Updated

Updated · The Guardian · Aug 18

Belgian Firefighters Push to Encircle 3,000-Hectare Wildfire as Rain Hampers Air Support

Q: With underground peat fires capable of burning for months, what hidden dangers still lurk beneath Belgium’s historic High Fens reserve?

The biggest remaining threat is not the visible flame line but fire still smoldering underground in the High Fens’ dry peat. Experts and local fire officials warn that peat can keep burning unseen for weeks or even months, then suddenly break back to the surface as new flare-ups, especially in terrain crews cannot easily reach near the German border. That hidden combustion is dangerous because peat fires burn below ground, evade normal suppression, and can survive rain that slows surface flames. In the High Fens, firefighters have said the blaze has already penetrated into the peat layer in places. The reserve’s mix of bog, heath and forest makes hotspots hard to detect and harder to fully extinguish, particularly where low cloud and rough ground restrict aircraft and direct ground attack. The risks go beyond renewed fire spread. Underground peat burning can destabilize the ground, produce persistent smoke and fine-particle pollution, and keep threatening nearby communities even after evacuations are lifted. It also destroys a carbon-rich soil that took centuries to form. Scientists say recovery of badly burned peatland could take decades or even centuries, far longer than recovery from a surface vegetation fire like the one seen in the same area in 2011. So even if firefighters succeed in fully surrounding the blaze, the reserve may still be hiding residual heat, buried hotspots and the potential for reignition beneath apparently blackened, quiet ground.

3 articles · Updated · The Guardian · Aug 18

Hundreds of firefighters made what officials called a potentially decisive push Tuesday to fully surround Belgium’s largest wildfire in a century in the High Fens nature reserve.
Rainclouds disrupted air support as crews tried to stop the blaze’s advance, while gusty easterly winds complicated work on a hard-to-reach fire front near the German border.
Much of the 3,000-hectare fire has already been contained, but that remaining border section remains the main concern for commanders.
Tony Hosmans, spokesman for the crisis cell, said success in encircling the fire would leave it completely surrounded and improve hopes of halting its spread.