Fire crews battle blazes in Belgium and Greece as two die on island near Athens

Firefighters battle a wildfire on the island of Salamina, west of Athens, Greece (Michael Varaklas/AP)

Firefighters battled a massive wildfire that scorched a nature reserve in eastern Belgium and another on a Greek island where two people were killed on Sunday as hot and dry conditions fuelled fires across parts of Europe.

A blaze in eastern Belgium burned about 30 square kilometres (12 square miles) in the High Fens, a large nature reserve, in one of the country’s worst wildfires in recent history.

About 600 residents in the nearby municipalities of Waimes and Butgenbach, in Liege province near the German border, were told to evacuate on Saturday as winds shifted and smoke spread through the area.

Authorities also advised tourists to leave, while a nearby gymnasium was opened to receive evacuees.

Liege provincial governor Herve Jamar said in a statement on Sunday that more than 250 emergency personnel have been deployed, including more than 100 Belgian and German firefighters, as well as police and military officers and civil protection staff.

Firefighting helicopters operated by Belgium’s federal police and the Netherlands also helped.

In Greece, two people were killed in a wildfire on Sunday on the island of Salamina, west of Athens, Greek firefighters said.

The bodies were recovered in the village of Peristeria, where strong winds fuelled the rapidly spreading blaze.

A second blaze was reported in the Selini area.

Firefighting and coast guard vessels were evacuating beachgoers in the area.

Some 260 firefighters were responding to the blazes, including 15 ground teams, 10 aircraft and eight helicopters.

The island had been placed at high wildfire risk on Sunday, with near gale-force winds.

“These conditions enabled the fire to quickly reach dangerous proportions and spread rapidly within seven minutes toward nearby residential areas,” said fire brigadier general Vasileios Vathrakogiannis.

The blaze now torching Belgium has far surpassed a 2011 fire that burned nearly 14 square kilometres (5.4 square miles) in the same area and was previously the country’s largest wildfire on record, according to data from the European Forest Fire Information System.

Nicolas Yernaux, a spokesperson for the Public Service of Wallonia, said conditions were much worse this time.

“We’re dealing with something much deeper because we have very dry soil,” he said.

Rene Dahmen, chief engineer at the Department of Nature and Forest, said the fire was still spreading on Sunday in an area that was difficult for crews to reach.

“On the eastern flank, there’s a line at least a kilometre long where the fire is slowly advancing toward a municipal forest,” Dahmen said.

“That’s the first priority now.”

Interior minister Bernard Quintin said on X firefighters managed to keep the fire from spreading towards the west and towards the German town of Monschau.

In Germany, local authorities warned on Sunday that the fire was about 1.5 kilometres (just under a mile) from the border.

Some farmers from both Belgium and Germany filled up tanker trucks, pumping water from a nearby lake before heading towards the fire area to help firefighters.

Belgium activated the European Union’s civil protection mechanism to receive assistance from other countries, EU commissioner Hadja Lahbib, who is in charge of crisis management, said on X.

“The High Fens are burning. Belgium is not facing it alone,” Ms Lahbib said.

Sweden sent two water-bombing aircraft, while three helicopters – two from the Netherlands and one from the Czech Republic – were also being deployed.

The fire follows weeks of unusually hot and dry weather.

The High Fens’ mix of heathland and peat bogs has complicated efforts to contain the flames.

Belgium was hit by another spell of intense heat this week, with temperatures reaching about 37C in parts of the country on Friday.

In France, firefighters battling a wildfire in a pine forest in the south-western Landes region faced no major flare-ups overnight, Landes prefect Gilles Clavreul said.

Authorities estimated the total area burned at 17 square kilometres (6.6 square miles), while about 650 people had been evacuated from their homes.

It was the third major wildfire in the vast pine forests of south-western France this summer, following two others in late July.

A massive wildfire in the neighbouring Gironde department burned about 420 square kilometres (162 square miles) and forced the evacuation of about 220,000 people as it spread towards the Atlantic coast and the Bordeaux area.

In Germany, firefighters made significant progress against a wildfire in the Hurtgen Forest, allowing about 2,000 evacuated residents of Gey to return home on Saturday.

Officials said on Sunday there were no open flames and crews had established a cleared cordon around the affected area to prevent the fire from spreading.