These fires in eastern Germany produce apocalyptic images. In the back of Saxon Switzerland, columns of smoke hundreds of meters high rise in the middle of the national park; in southern Brandenburg, flames surround a dozen wind turbines in a forest. Fire wagons disappear in the dense clouds of smoke near the town of Kölsa; not far away, a wall of fire eats its way closer and closer to a piglet rearing facility. Many of the animals suffocate or burn miserably. The fire is “very dynamic,” says Philipp Haase, Brandenburg’s deputy forest fire protection officer.
These are the biggest forest fires this year so far, especially in Brandenburg. “Disaster. Everything is on fire here. Hundreds of emergency services on site. The situation is completely out of control,” wrote the fire department of the nearby town of Falkenberg on Facebook late Monday evening. Since then, the fire has spread to 850 hectares of forest, which would be around 1,200 if calculated as football fields.
Plumes of smoke from the fire rise between the wind turbines.
(Photo: Jan Woitas/dpa)
The Elbe-Elster district has declared a so-called major damage situation and brought together firefighters from all over the state. According to the district, 350 emergency services are currently fighting the flames. Seven of them were injured. Around 10 a.m. on Tuesday morning, two Bundeswehr helicopters also arrived to extinguish the fire from the air. Since they each have to absorb 5000 liters of water, a bathing lake in a nearby recreation area was closed for this purpose.
The situation is particularly dramatic for the people in the surrounding towns. Around 700 residents in Rehfeld and Kölsa have already been evacuated. If the fire spreads further, Lönnewitz would also have to be evacuated. “Everything depends on the weather conditions,” says district spokesman Torsten Hoffgaard. The forecast does not bode well, it is expected that the wind could pick up again and fuel the fire further.
Several fire accelerants: drought, heat and high winds
There have been more than 380 fires in Brandenburg’s forests this year. But the area devastated is hardly larger than the area now affected by the fire. “The fire has spread very massively,” says fire safety officer Haase. The reason for this is that several fire accelerators meet: dry soil, heat and strong winds. If all this comes together, according to Haase, “then you can hardly contain a fire”. Fighting this fire will take days.
The fires are not only raging in Brandenburg, but also in neighboring Saxony. There, the flames have been eating their way through Bohemian and Saxon Switzerland since Sunday evening. On Tuesday, the Saxon Switzerland-East Ore Mountains district issued a disaster alarm for the area around the Bad Schandau excursion destination: “We urgently ask guests, tourists and hikers to avoid the area of the rear Saxon Switzerland so as not to hinder the emergency services in their work.” , the authority announced in the morning.
The Czech national park Bohemian Switzerland, on the border with Saxony, is on fire.
(Photo: Robert Michael/dpa)
On the Czech side, 30 hectares of forest burned near the popular tourist resort of Hřensko, and residents had to leave their homes. In the nearby village of Mezna, several houses were destroyed by the fire. On the night of Tuesday, 70 children and educators from a holiday camp were taken to safety in the border area, nobody was injured.
According to the Pirna district office, 250 emergency services have been at work in the region since Monday afternoon, supported by helicopters from the state and federal police, and two police water cannons are also in use. There were several sources of fire on the Großer Winterberg, and the extinguishing work was particularly difficult due to the impassable area. Marc Henkenjohann runs a snack bar for hikers right there and is very worried. Mainly because he can’t do anything himself right now. “It seems to be really serious,” he says to the SZ on the phone from his vacation in Mallorca, “I just can’t reach anyone in the district”. So all he can do is hope that the fire brigades will soon get the situation under control.