Forest fire in Grunewald
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Avus reopened to traffic – delays in dismantling the barriers
Almost a week after the fire broke out at the Grunewald blast site, the Avus motorway was closed. However, the barriers would first have to be removed, said a fire department spokesman.
After about a week, the Avus motorway near the Walbrand area in Berlin’s Grunewald was reopened to traffic. As the fire brigade announced on Twitter on Wednesday, the barriers began to be removed from 6 p.m.
The Avus will therefore be passable again in the next few hours, a fire department spokesman told rbb. According to the Berlin traffic information center, this can last until around 9 p.m.
Access and exit Hüttenweg remains closed
The Havelchaussee will soon be open to traffic again. The access to and exit from Hüttenweg, on the other hand, remains closed.
The A115 (Avus) motorway is about 500 meters from the blast site. Before opening, it had to be ensured that there was no longer any danger from the ammunition and pyrotechnics stored on the site.
On Wednesday, special police forces also entered the blast site for the first time. The employees of the ordnance clearance service and the fireworks of the police had examined the place to assess the damage, a fire department spokesman told rbb.
A water supply was also laid to further cool the square. It can currently be ruled out that ammunition will explode uncontrollably due to the heat.
Further forest area heavily contaminated with ammunition
According to a fire department spokesman, it was still hours on Tuesday evening Two Federal Police helicopters in action. The helicopters were “basically every five minutes” from around 5 p.m. to fetch water from the nearby Havel and drop it over the blasting site, said a fire department spokesman. A third helicopter accompanied the operation, which lasted until around 8 p.m. According to rbb information, they should also be used again on Wednesday.
The emergency services promised a lot from the action: “We hope for a great effect,” said the fire department spokesman. Contrary to an initial assessment, it was found that the forest area south of the blast site was also heavily contaminated by ammunition that had been thrown around by the explosions. “But fighting fires from the air is now possible.”
Terrain not cool enough yet
On the blasting site, where the police stored 30 tons of old grenades, ammunition and confiscated fireworks, there was a violent fire on Thursday night. The cause is not yet known. Numerous explosions could still be heard on Tuesday night.
Because of the danger from scattered ammunition and old World War II bombs, the fire brigade has so far only been able to cool the hot spots on the ground and the remaining explosive devices with a fire fighting vehicle and firefighting robots.
Firefighters extinguished the fires from the edge of the 550-meter exclusion zone during the day on Tuesday. The terrain was already significantly cooler than on Monday morning, when temperatures of 140 degrees were still measured. But some spots are still very warm, it said. If the temperatures stay below 60 degrees permanently, it is possible to reduce the blocking circuit, the spokesman said. Then a release of the highway is possible.
Broadcast: rbb24, August 10, 2022, 1:00 p.m