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Wildfire extinguished in former military area near Berlin

June 11, 2023

After twelve days of fighting the forest fires in the former military training area near Jüterbog south of Berlin, the German firefighters have finally brought the blaze under control.

https://p.dw.com/p/4SRgw
Firefighters wearing protective gear and white helmets stand atop a fire truck and spray water from a fire hose into a forest.
Due to the danger of ammunition explosions, the firefighters have to fight the fire from the special pathsImage: Bernd März/IMAGO

Firefighters on Sunday brought the forest fire on the former military training area in Jüterbog south of Berlin under control. The fire department's operations center said it had lifted its warning of the potential for major damages, but said that observation teams would nevertheless stay at the scene. 

The rain that fell on Saturday evening helped to fight the fire, according to Silvio Kahle, spokesman for the operations center. "The weather and the extinguishing measures had an effect," he said.

Firefighting efforts were concentrated in the area around Altes Lager, a village in the Teltow Fläming district. 

Danger of ammunition explosion

The firefighters have been battling the blaze since May 31, but they couldn't get to the source of the fire directly because of the risk of explosion on the former military training area. Strong winds had repeatedly fanned the flames over the past few days.

The firefighters cleared large strips of land to contain the blaze but were avoiding the former training grounds themselves, where several explosions were heard earlier this week. The risk of more unexploded ordnance was deemed too high. 

They could only work on putting the fire out from specially created paths. These were constantly watered, again to reduce the risk from possible stray munitions.

The entire affected area currently covered around 733 hectares, but, according to the operations center, there was no danger to surrounding towns and villages.

Helicopters helped fight the fire

The German armed forces joined the firefighters on Saturday, providing two helicopters. A police helicopter was also used.

According to the police, around 86,000 liters of water were dropped on 48 approaches on Saturday. Since the beginning of June, around 448,000 liters of water have been used on 249 approaches to provide on-site support.

The danger of forest fires is currently high throughout Brandenburg, with dry weather and barely any rain forecast.

According to the German weather service DWD, the risk of fire in areas around Berlin will remain high for the next two days, amid warm temperatures across much of the country.

dh/msh (dpa, AFP, AP)