The forest is also burning in the Harz - and is now spreading to a moor. This brings with it new difficulties in the extinguishing work. So far, only a small area has been affected - but the consequences could be seen for a long time.
The major fire on the Brocken in the Harz Mountains is still not under control on the third day. Around 200 firefighters are still on duty in the Harz National Park. A total of around 150 hectares of forest burn. The flames have now also spread to a moor area.
In the Harz Mountains, the moor area affected by the fire has so far been comparatively small. "A maximum of 100 square meters is affected," Roland Pietsch, head of the Harz National Park, told ntv.de. The burning area is far from the big bogs. The moor in the Harz only burns on the surface, the layers below are still damp. This means that these layers are preserved. The moors on the "Harzer Brocken" formed after the ice age and are also correspondingly old.
Since the forest fire in the Harz Mountains affects a large area, the fire brigade is deployed with helicopters and airplanes. Among them are firefighting aircraft from Italy, as reported by the NDR. When the helicopters are not dropping fire-fighting water over the moor, the National Park employees hack up the moorland with rakes so that the fire-fighting water can seep in.
According to NDR, there is a risk that the fires will spread underground as the fire penetrates deep into the ground. This makes extinguishing work even more difficult because it is becoming increasingly difficult for the extinguishing water to get into the depths, as the "Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung" reports. Because the moor area is difficult for fire engines to drive on, the fire brigade comes in such cases with a so-called fire engine. The special vehicle resembles an excavator and is particularly suitable for uneven or swampy terrain.
A bog fire can have even worse consequences for the environment than a forest fire. Because a bog consists of dead organic material, which normally binds the greenhouse gas CO2. The moor stores twice as much CO2 as a forest. However, if there is a fire, the stored CO2 is released and is released back into the atmosphere.
As soon as the fire in the moor has been extinguished, the long road to rehabilitation begins. "Under good conditions, a moor grows one millimeter per year," says National Park Manager Pietsch. It will be a few years before the burns in the moor are no longer visible. Nevertheless, Pietsch remains optimistic: "Of course, the burned material cannot be rebuilt, but we still have a lot of material in the deeper layers. Then plants will settle again." At some point you will no longer see the traces of the fire.
The current fire in the Harz Mountains mainly affects the many spruce forests. So far, 3.6 hectares of spruce forest have been destroyed, reports the NDR. Many spruce trees have been damaged by the bark beetle and are very dry, which is actually an advantage for containing the fire, says Pietsch. Healthy conifers contain essential oils, which is why they burn particularly quickly.
