2 killed as fires break out in Greece, firefighters battle massive wildfires in Belgium

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

A blaze in eastern Belgium burned about 30 square kilometers (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 Bütgenbach, in Liège 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.

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

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

The bodies were recovered in the village of Peristeria, where strong winds fueled 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 kilometers (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.

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

“On the eastern flank, there’s a line at least a kilometer 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 toward the German town of Monschau.

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