Belgian firefighters push to encircle ‘largest wildfire in a century’ – as it happened

Belgium’s Century-Defining Wildfire Faces Its Most Critical Hour

Wanderstayfinder.com – For the first time in living memory, Belgium’s firefighters found themselves locked in a race against a blaze that had consumed 3,000 hectares of the High Fens nature reserve — an area roughly equivalent to half of Manhattan. By Tuesday, hundreds of crews had been working around the clock to wrestle the inferno under control, and the situation reached what officials described as a potentially decisive inflection point.

The fire, which had been charring peatland, pine stands, and hiking trails since the weekend, had already been largely contained across most of its perimeter. Yet one stubborn front, situated near the German border in terrain that proved extremely difficult to reach, continued to pose a serious threat. Gusty easterly winds compounded the challenge, pushing embers and heat toward areas where crews could not easily establish containment lines.

“This day will likely be decisive if firefighters succeed in their strategy of encircling the fire. If that happens, the fire will be completely surrounded, and we can hope to stop its advance,” said Tony Hosmans, spokesman for the crisis cell.

Airborne support, which had been critical in the earlier phases of the response, was forced to stand down as rainclouds rolled over the reserve and thick fog reduced visibility to near zero. Local broadcasters confirmed that helicopter and fixed-wing operations were suspended for the remainder of the day, leaving ground crews to carry the encirclement effort alone.

The High Fens, a vast expanse of peat bog and mixed woodland straddling the Belgian-Dutch border, is particularly vulnerable to fire because its waterlogged substrate, once dried out by prolonged heat, ignites with extraordinary intensity and burns deep into the ground. The combination of successive heatwaves and a continent-wide drought had left the peat desiccated well before the first ignition, turning what might ordinarily have been a manageable brush fire into a catastrophe of unprecedented scale for the country.

European Agriculture Braces for a Historic Harvest Collapse

While Belgium battled its wildfire, a quieter but equally grave crisis was unfolding across the continent’s farmland. Successive intense heatwaves, amplified by a supersized El Niño pattern, had scorched fields from the Atlantic coast to the eastern borders, and growers were issuing warnings of what they called “catastrophic” shortfalls.

In France, Europe’s largest grain producer, the agriculture ministry estimated that the maize harvest would fall by roughly 35 percent compared with 2025 levels, landing at approximately nine million tonnes — a figure last recorded in 1980. Part of the decline reflected farmers’ decisions to rotate into sunflowers and other heat-tolerant crops, but the ministry acknowledged that the vicious summer heat was the dominant factor.

The vegetable sector fared no better. French growers reported shortfalls of 25 percent for courgettes, 35 percent for lettuces, 40 percent for peas, 60 percent for broccoli, and between 50 and 100 percent for artichokes. Prince de Bretagne, a cooperative grouping more than 1,300 vegetable producers in the Brittany region, described the situation as a “historic crisis” and called for “urgent action” to address what it termed a “dramatic” collapse in both yield and crop quality.

“Usually one region fares better, which helps compensate,” Eric Legras, representing the 4,400-member French canned and frozen vegetable producers’ association, told Le Monde. “This year, all our main production areas have been hit, and at the same time.”

Temperatures routinely exceeding 30 °C — and frequently breaching 35 °C — combined with near-total absence of rainfall and persistent hot winds had effectively halted plant development across every major growing region simultaneously. The absence of any compensating “good” region meant that no surplus could offset the losses elsewhere, a dynamic that had never before been observed at this scale.

Ukraine–Russia Conflict Escalates on Multiple Fronts

Ten people were killed in overnight Russian strikes on Ukrainian territory, prompting President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to declare that Kyiv would “definitely respond” with its own strikes. In a parallel escalation, Ukraine launched more than 600 drones at Moscow and surrounding areas during the night, marking another step in the sustained aerial campaign that has become a defining feature of the war.

The conflict also drew a new dimension into the open: Moscow threatened the United Kingdom with “consequences” after reports emerged that British drones had been used to strike targets on Russia’s mainland for the first time. UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham responded by pledging that his government’s policy of supporting Ukraine would not change.

Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prévot, who was in Kyiv for bilateral talks, was rushed into a bomb shelter during an air alert in the Ukrainian capital. He nonetheless completed his meetings with his Ukrainian counterpart from the shelter before resuming diplomatic work.

Other Developments Across Europe

Germany inaugurated a new centre dedicated to drone security, framing its mission around what officials called “the shadow war of the 21st century” — a nod to the growing role of unmanned aerial systems in both conventional and hybrid conflict.

In southern Spain, Granada endured a fresh series of earthquakes, three of which registered at magnitude 4.0 or above. Three people were injured and local buildings sustained damage. The tremors followed a 5.0 quake that had struck the city on Saturday, deepening residents’ anxiety about further seismic activity in a region not accustomed to frequent shaking.