Firefighters from the East Limburg emergency zone worked for several hours overnight from Friday to Saturday to extinguish a forest fire in the Mechelse Heide nature reserve, Maasmechelen.
The initial alert came in around 23:00, but pinpointing the fire’s exact location in the dense woodland proved challenging. A drone team was deployed to assist with the search. Approximately 50 ares (5,000 square metres) of vegetation were burned.
Residents in nearby areas, including Oude Baan in Maasmechelen and Rekem near Lanaken, noticed the smell of fire around midnight. Fire crews gathered at the Salamander entrance to the Mechelse Heide and then proceeded to the fire’s location in the Hoge Kempen National Park.
By 1:00, firefighters were able to begin extinguishing the blaze. The operation lasted several hours and was only concluded on Saturday morning.
This fire comes just days after a massive forest fire struck the same area on Thursday, 22 May, destroying 50 hectares of land. Four separate ignition points were discovered during that incident, prompting the Limburg public prosecutor’s office to launch an investigation into suspected arson.
