Danger in peatland fires: Why fires in the parched peatland are difficult to combat
The fire in the High Venn is particularly difficult to extinguish because it is a dried-out raised bog. There are very special dangers.
Fires in dried-up moors, such as the Belgian nature reserve Hohes Venn, can be hazardous. The fire can spread quickly and persist for a long time due to the peat soil and underground smoldering. According to Tanja Sanders from the Thünen-Institut für Waldökosysteme, moor fires behave differently than vegetation fires, spreading invisibly under the surface and fueled by dry peat.
The University of Antwerp's Tobias Ceulemans criticizes the decades-long drainage of the Hohes Venn area for forestry, saying it should be prohibited. A fire expert, Luc Burette, warns that extinguishing the fire will be a weeks-long effort requiring large amounts of water.
Written by urgent.news from Handelsblatt's report — not a translation of it. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
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