Düsseldorf (dpa / lnw) - In the current year there have been few forest fires in North Rhine-Westphalia compared to previous years, but recently there has been a significant increase due to the drought. On Tuesday alone, seven fires were registered, the NRW Ministry of Agriculture announced on Wednesday in Düsseldorf. There have been a total of eleven fires since last Saturday, while there had been no fire in the forest in the almost four weeks before.
According to the ministry, 27 forest and wildfires have been registered since the beginning of the year. Negative values were reached in 2018 (160 fires) and 2020 (227 fires), and fires often broke out in 2019 (95 fires) and 2021 (79 fires). In previous years, however, the number was mostly in the 20s or 30s.
Drought had recently caused a high risk of forest fires across the country. In parts of the Münsterland and in Ostwestfalen-Lippe, there was even the highest warning level 5 on Wednesday – i.e. “very high risk”.
A forest fire broke out near Sundern in Sauerland on Tuesday, which spread to 50,000 square meters by Wednesday, i.e. the size of about seven football pitches. Police helicopters with extinguishing tanks supported firefighting from the air.
Forest fires also broke out in Attendorn, Hennef in the Rhein-Sieg district, Plettenberg in the Märkisch district and in Detmold on Tuesday and Wednesday night. The so-called grassland fire index of the German Weather Service showed high warning levels for NRW on Tuesday and Wednesday. According to the police, a field in Jülich burned in an area that corresponded to about 16 football pitches.
Storms and heavy rain were forecast for Thursday night. This is also noticeable in the forest fire risk index: it recorded “very low risk” again for Thursday and for the whole of NRW.
