fires
Forest fire at Jüterbog expanded – danger in northern Saxony
Flames shoot up in a forest near Jüterbog. photo
© Fabian Sommer/dpa
In the case of a large forest fire near Jüterbog in Brandenburg, the fire brigade can only protect the villages. A firefighting operation on the former military training area would be too dangerous.
A freshening wind fanned the forest fire near Jüterbog south of Berlin and more than doubled the affected area to 326 hectares. “The flames are heading towards the protective strips, but the fire brigade has the situation under control there,” reported the head of the municipal regulatory office, Christiane Lindner-Klopsch, on Monday afternoon. On Sunday, the fire brigade estimated the affected area on the former military training area to be more than 150 hectares.
Due to the great drought, the risk of forest fires has also increased in northern Saxony. In the northern parts of the districts of Görlitz, Bautzen and Meißen as well as in Dresden, in the district of North Saxony and in the Leipzig region, the second highest warning level 4 applied on Monday, as in Brandenburg. In some regions, entering the forest is already restricted, said Renke Coordes from Sachsenforst .
In the Czech Republic, a forest fire in the municipality of Bublava in the border area with Saxony was finally extinguished after one day. The fire broke out on Sunday afternoon and covered an area of around four hectares of forest. According to the authorities, the fire on Königsberg near Schierke (Saxony-Anhalt) has also been extinguished.
Protective strips widened
Because of the large forest fire near Jüterbog, the protective strip in the southern area of the fire area was widened so that no more flames spread from the former military training area to the surrounding villages, the head of the regulatory office reported. The firefighters are supplied with water from numerous wells and a large extinguishing pond.
The former military training area is loaded with ammunition. On Sunday evening and on Monday, ammunition detonated several times on the fire area, Lindner-Klopsch reported. The use of fire-fighting helicopters or clearing tanks is also not possible effectively because of the size of the forest fire area, she said. Therefore, the firefighters could not fight the fire directly, but only keep the protective strips free at the edge to protect the villages.
The geoecologist Kirsten Thonicke from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research thinks this is the right approach. “In this constellation, I would advocate simply watching there and deleting it from the edge,” she told RBB’s Inforadio. In these cases, you have to learn to live with the fire, said Thonicke. “And to understand the fire here as a new beginning, (…), for the natural areas to grow again, (…), I think we have to get used to that.”
Urgent clearance of ammunition required
In view of the forest fire near Jüterbog, however, the Association for the Promotion of German Fire Protection called for the ammunition to be cleared as quickly as possible in the endangered areas. “It is also necessary to procure protected vehicles,” said forest fire expert Ulrich Cimolino, according to the press release.
In view of the persistent drought, the forest fire protection officer Raimund Engel in Brandenburg does not expect the situation to ease in the short term. “Even if there should be some precipitation in southern Brandenburg in the coming days, this will hardly change the risk of forest fires,” said Engel on Monday. “The situation remains extremely dangerous.”
On the other hand, the weather forecasts in Saxony indicate that the situation will ease in the coming days. Unstable weather with showers and thunderstorms is expected from Tuesday to the weekend, said Jens Oehmichen, meteorologist at the German Weather Service. “By the weekend, every region in Saxony should have received precipitation.” Even after that, no further dry period is expected.