(Belgium, 16th) Belgian firefighters continued their full efforts on the 15th to contain the country's most severe wildfire in modern history, as large areas of nature reserves have been burned to ashes and around 600 villagers in eastern Belgium were ordered to evacuate.
According to international media reports, the wildfire broke out on the 14th in Hautes Fagnes Park near the German border and quickly spread. Authorities deployed reinforcements from across the country, while helicopters and firefighting planes from various EU countries arrived to assist.
Officials described this wildfire as the largest in scale in Belgium's modern history, with the fire starting from peat bogs and pine forests.
The area affected by the fire rapidly expanded from about 80 hectares on the 14th to over 2,700 hectares by the evening of the 15th. Data from the European Forest Fire Information System shows that the area burned is nearly twice the size of Belgium's previous record in 2011, when about 1,400 hectares were affected.
EU officials pointed out that this wildfire is the latest warning sign of drastic climate change: wildfire season has never started so early, nor reached such northern latitudes. At the same time, only several dozen kilometers away in western Germany, another wildfire is raging, forcing about 1,800 people to evacuate.
Recently, Belgium has suffered from high temperatures, with some areas recording highs of 37 degrees Celsius on the 14th. These hot and dry conditions have increased the risk of the wildfire spreading rapidly.