The warning is urgent: “The situation is dramatic,” said Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania’s Agriculture Minister Till Backhau on Monday evening at a press conference on the three forest fires in the north-east of the Federal Republic. Hundreds of hectares of forest are burning within a few kilometers and towns are coming dangerously close.
The two biggest fires are raging on two former military training areas near Lübtheen and Hagenow. The situation there is particularly dramatic. 100 hectares are on fire near Lübtheen, 35 hectares near Hagenow. Hundreds of firefighters tried to contain the fire throughout the night, watering the soil in the area. Fortunately, the weather played along: because the night was largely calm, the fire had not spread further, a spokesman for the Ludwigslust-Parchim district said early Tuesday morning to the German Press Agency.
This is good news, especially for the residents of Volzrade. The village belonging to Lübtheen is only 800 meters from the fires, the 160 residents were evacuated on Monday to be on the safe side and spent the night with friends, relatives or in emergency accommodation in the small town’s gym. One is confident of being able to protect the town from the fire, emphasized the head of the fire brigade on Monday evening.
The fires broke out quickly and, aided by gusty winds, spread rapidly. Because ammunition residues are still stored on the former military training area from the Second World War, there were several explosions. This made the work of the more than 400 rescue workers more difficult. Parts of the fire area are simply too dangerous, they had to be cleared, said a spokesman.
In the district of Ludwigslust-Parchim in the south-west of Mecklenburg, firefighters have to fight two more forest fires. The fire broke out on Monday evening in about one hectare of forest near Crivitz and on Tuesday morning in a forest covering around 6000 square meters near Boizenburg, as a police spokesman said on Tuesday. Both fires are already under control. Because of the extinguishing work in the entire Ludwigslust-Parchim region, the federal highway 321 is completely closed.
In the forest fire area near Jüterbog south of Berlin, a fire flared up again on Monday evening. As the head of the Jüterbog regulatory office, Christiane Lindner-Klopsch, said on Tuesday, about two hectares are burning, which are several hundred meters from a protective strip on the edge of the fire area. It can only be extinguished from there when the fire approaches the protective strip. The fire brigade itself cannot enter the fire area because there is still a lot of ammunition in the ground at the former military training area. The fire brigade monitored the fire on site during the night.
According to Lindner-Klopsch, a drone will fly over the fire area on Tuesday so that the fire brigade can get an overview from above. In order to finally extinguish the forest fire, one hopes for rain or for the flames to die out themselves. Fire is always unpredictable, said the head of the regulatory office. “That’s why the situation is not yet under control.” Overall, the situation is no longer as tense as it was at the weekend.
The region was only affected by the largest forest fire in the state to date in 2019. In the summer of 2019, more than 1,200 hectares were on fire at the military training area. In response to the record fire, firebreaks and deep wells were built to better prevent outbreaks of this magnitude.
