North Rhine-Westphalia: Forest fire on the Belgian border: 1,800 people have to leave their homes
Due to a forest fire on Friday near Hürtgenwald, authorities have called on people to seek safety at a designated assembly point. 300 emergency responders are battling the fire, which has spread to around 300 hectares of forest.
A forest fire erupted in the night in the community of Hütgenwald, located in the North Rhine-Westphalia region, specifically within the municipality of Hürtgenwald. The Bundeswehr deployed two fire-fighting helicopters to combat the blaze. The specific area of Gey, which is home to approximately 1800 residents, was completely evacuated.
The situation remained critical on Friday, according to Bürgermeister Stephan Cranen. The flames were still around 300 meters away from Gey in the morning, as reported by the Westdeutsche Rundfunk (WDR).
One of the uncontrolled fire fronts had merged with an uncontrolled blaze at a former munitions depot in Düren during the night. Given that there are still unexploded munitions from World War II in parts of the forest, isolated explosions occurred, complicating the firefighting efforts on the now 300 hectare large fire area. Two armored bulldozers from the Bundeswehr assisted the fire department in creating channels through the challenging terrain.
Overall, about 25 hectares of forest are currently burning in the community of Hürtgenwald, which is roughly equivalent to the area of 35 football fields. The community has described the situation as a "major damage scenario."
Written by urgent.news from Handelsblatt's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
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