In Brandenburg and Saxony, the fire brigade continues to fight forest and wildfires. The situation is dramatic, the flames are partly out of control. An expert brings up the use of extinguishing tanks – but there are concerns.
The fight against the flames continues in the forest fire areas in southern Brandenburg and in the Saxon Switzerland National Park. In Saxon Switzerland, the fire spread over 250 hectares on Tuesday evening, according to the Saxon Switzerland-Eastern Ore Mountains district office. 400 forces are in action. In addition to the inaccessibility of the site, the complicated procurement of extinguishing water, which is fetched from the Elbe and the Kirnitzsch, among other things, is problematic, said a spokesman. The water first has to be brought to the affected area using tankers or helicopters.
In the meantime, all three expected helicopters from the Bundeswehr have arrived and are in use with two other helicopters from the Federal Police, it was said on Tuesday evening. The fire spread from the Bohemian Switzerland National Park in the Czech Republic to the Saxon Switzerland National Park on Monday.
Bundeswehr helicopters also extinguished the fire from the air in southern Brandenburg on Tuesday, police water cannons and many hundreds of firefighters were deployed. Again and again, rising winds made it difficult to contain the fires.
In the evening, the extinguishing work in the Elbe-Elster district concentrated on the southern area of ??the fire along federal highway 183 near the Falkenberg-Lönnewitz airfield. An area of ??around 850 hectares is still affected, said the deputy forest fire protection officer, Philipp Haase. However, a hot fire – with flames and smoke – only raged over an area of ??around 500 hectares. These are mainly wooded areas that are difficult for vehicles to access. It also turned out that there is sometimes old ammunition there.
The state fire brigade association described the fire as the largest forest fire this year in Brandenburg. “The emergency services try under all circumstances to prevent the flames from reaching the other side of the main road,” said Haase. Further north near Rehfeld, the situation is now under control. A total of around seven helicopters were in action on Tuesday. Haase assumes that extinguishing all the embers could take days, if not weeks.
In Bad Schandau in Saxon Switzerland, a disaster alarm was triggered on Tuesday. Tourists should avoid the area. In the district of Saxon Switzerland-Osterzgebirge, the forests may no longer be entered until further notice. The fire spread from the Bohemian Switzerland National Park in the Czech Republic to Saxony on Monday. Residential areas were not threatened.
State Environment Minister Wolfram Günther described the fire as a tragedy. The current wildfire season is devastating, he said. Near the forest fire area in the district of Elbe-Elster is a recreation area with a bathing lake and a campsite. The body of water was now used by the Bundeswehr to take extinguishing water for the helicopters. The lake was therefore closed on Tuesday. Rail traffic between Leipzig and Cottbus was also interrupted.
For some villagers, the situation eased somewhat: the evacuation of the two districts of Rehfeld and Kölsa was lifted. Residents, some of whom stayed in emergency accommodation, were allowed to return to their homes on Tuesday. In the evening, the evacuation of the Kölsa settlement was lifted, as the district announced. “The background to the current decision is the easing of the situation in the north and east sections of the large fire in Kölsa-Rehfeld in the city of Falkenberg,” it said. However, the fire had dire consequences for a piglet farm: the farmer lost stables and many animals.
There are also a number of wind turbines near the forest fire area. Operators reported that their wind turbines were not damaged. The Thüga company announced that its three plants were out of operation for safety reasons. It is now necessary to investigate how the forest fires came about. There had been several small fires in the Elbe-Elster district in the past few days. In some cases, the police initiated criminal proceedings on suspicion of arson.
The fire ecologist Johann Georg Goldammer considers the use of extinguishing tanks to be useful in forest fires in munitions-loaded areas. The expert told the RBB that he did not understand why no extinguishing tanks had been used in Brandenburg this year. Brandenburg’s Minister of the Interior, Michael Stübgen, spoke out on the RBB against extinguishing tanks. In the severe fire situations in 2018, extinguishing tanks from private providers were used. These would not have proven themselves in use in the narrow forest and also in terms of the amount of water, said Stübgen.
Meanwhile, bad forest fires also prevailed in the Czech Republic, where the situation with the forest fire in the Bohemian Switzerland National Park near the border with Saxony has deteriorated dramatically. Around 450 firefighters fought the flames on Tuesday, a spokesman said. They were supported by police and army helicopters and planes. The forest fire spread to an area of ??almost 1000 hectares. Prime Minister Petr Fiala got an idea of ??the situation on site.
The village of Vysoka Lipa, with around 100 inhabitants, had to be evacuated in the evening because the flames threatened to engulf it. Eight buildings caught fire in the town of Mezna, some of which burned out completely. Almost all residents of the municipality of Hrensko, which is considered the gateway to the national park, had to leave their homes on Tuesday morning, said a spokesman for the Czech fire brigade. In addition, the emergency services evacuated a children’s holiday camp in Srbska Kamenice with around 100 participants from Germany.
In recent years, the number of days with a high forest fire warning level in Germany has increased significantly. According to experts, it is difficult to prove a direct connection between climate change and individual forest fires. One thing is certain: due to climate change, there will be more hot days. Heat alone does not trigger forest fires. But high temperatures, drought, low humidity and wind can increase the risk of wildfires.