HUERTGENWALD, Germany, Aug 14 (Reuters) – More than 2,000 people were evacuated from their homes in western Germany on Friday, after a wildfire near the Belgian border spread towards a village, local authorities said.
Residents were asked to leave their residences in the village of Gey at around 4:00 a.m. (0200 GMT) and go to an assistance centre set up at a primary school in a nearby village, the authorities said in a statement.
“At about four o’clock we got a message via the app saying we had to leave the place straight away,” resident Leo Braun told Reuters. “So we gathered our things – which we’d already packed beforehand – and then fled.”
They were urged to carry only essential belongings, identification papers and necessary medicines.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz said he was being “kept constantly informed of developments,” adding that the federal police and the Bundeswehr were providing assistance where possible.
WWII ORDNANCE COMPLICATES CONTAINMENT
Stephan Cranen, mayor of Huertgenwald municipality which contains Gey, said the situation remained critical and the flames were now around 300 metres (1,000 ft) from the village, regional public broadcaster WDR reported.
Cranen was quoted as saying one of the wildfires that remain out of control had spread overnight towards a former munitions depot in the nearby town of Dueren.
There is unexploded World War Two munitions in parts of the surrounding forest because the hilly terrain prevented complete clearance of the area, and occasional detonations were heard during the wildfire, firefighters were quoted as saying.
About 300 hectares (740 acres) were burning as two German army tanks helped firefighters by clearing access routes through the forest area that were difficult to reach.
“If you look down from above, you can see that there are still a lot of fires – including smaller ones – that are still burning openly,” a local official told Reuters. “There are a lot of hot embers, so we’re far from done.”
(Reporting by Friederike Heine in Berlin and Andi Kranz in Huertgenwald; editing by Clarence Fernandez, Sharon Singleton and Toby Chopra)
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