Helicopters and planes are supposed to help
To According to the Harz district fire chief Kai-Uwe Lohse, five firefighting helicopters from Saxony-Anhalt and Lower Saxony are in use, including the helicopter from Magdeburg. According to the district, help also comes from a private provider’s helicopter, which takes water from the Mandelholz dam and the reserve basin on Wurmberg and brings it to the scene of the fire. Water is also to be taken from Lake Concordia in the Harz foothills.
From the evening, the help from the air was again significantly expanded. As the district announced, two firefighting planes have arrived from Italy. District fire chief Lohse wrote on Facebook that the planes would be used from Monday morning. Hopefully, together with the helicopters, you can create a good basis for the coming days.
The support from the air is necessary because parts of the fire are on a 30 to 45 degree steep slope, said district fire chief Lohse. There is therefore hardly any infrastructure in the form of forest paths on site.
Schierke not threatened
According to the district, a total of around 200 firefighters from the Harz, Börde and Goslar districts are deployed. Dozens of police officers also secure the area around the Brocken. 15 forces from the Technical Relief Agency are also on site. Accordingly, there is a no-fly zone for civil air traffic within a radius of 40 kilometers on the Brocken. A take-off and landing field has been set up at Magdeburg-Cochstedt Airport.
The town of Schierke was not threatened, the district of Harz said on Sunday afternoon. However, the access roads to visitors have been closed for safety reasons. The same applies to hiking trails around the fire.
Thanks from the district administrator and forest minister
The district administrator of the Harz district, Thomas Balcerowski (CDU), thanked all emergency services for their work on Sunday – but also the city of Braunlage and the district of Goslar for their support. Saxony-Anhalt’s Forest Minister Sven Schulze (also CDU) praised the fact that the operation was routine and coordinated right from the start.
Fire broke out at Brocken on Saturday
The fire at the Brocken broke out around 2:30 p.m. on Saturday. According to the control center in Wernigerode, a piece of forest south of the Brocken is on fire. The fire department classified the fire as a major fire.
According to the fire department, an area between the Eckerloch and Goethesteig hiking trails not far from the Brocken railway line is also affected. The fire brigade had problems because of the impassability of the area. “Several fires were recognized from the air,” said Wernigerode’s city spokeswoman Ariane Hofmann. The Goetheweg to the Brocken is one of the most frequented hiking trails in the Harz National Park.
People brought to safety from the summit
Of the Mountain summit was completely evacuated on Saturday evening. Among other things, there is a hotel and the Brocken station of the Harz narrow-gauge railways on the summit. As an MDR reporter reported, two buses had been requested for this. They brought Brocken visitors to safety.
Heavy smoke warning
the The Harz control center had already published information about the “NINA” warning app on Saturday. Visibility could be obstructed due to the heavy smoke. The city of Wernigerode made it clear in a statement from the evening that the summit was not accessible to visitors “due to ongoing operations”. “The Brocken is closed until further notice.”
The narrow-gauge railway does not go to the Brocken either. Tank wagons bring water to the scene of the fire instead. The HSB announced on its website that there would initially only be limited train traffic between Wernigerode and Drei Annen Hohne until Tuesday.