Rain Slows Belgium's Record Wildfire as Death Toll Rises Across Greece, Spain and Croatia

Since Belgium's Hautes Fagnes fire ignited Friday afternoon and grew into the country's largest wildfire on record, the death toll from Europe's wildfire season has climbed further. Two people were killed Sunday on the Greek island of Salamina. A Spanish soldier died the same day fighting a blaze in Aragon. Rain arriving Monday morning gave Belgian crews their first real break.

The High Fens fire has now burned roughly 3,000 hectares, or about 30 square kilometers, according to provisional figures reported by The Guardian. That dwarfs the previous Belgian record, a 2011 fire that burned nearly 14 square kilometers in the same nature reserve, according to data from the European Forest Fire Information System cited by the Associated Press.

Nicolas Yernaux, a spokesperson for the Public Service of Wallonia, told the AP the difference this time is the ground itself. "We're dealing with something much deeper because we have very dry soil," he said. René Dahmen, chief engineer at the Department of Nature and Forest, said crews were still fighting to stop the fire's eastern flank from reaching a municipal forest as of Sunday.

Belgium's King Philippe was scheduled to visit the affected area Monday morning, according to The Guardian, following a weekend that saw roughly 600 residents of Waimes and Bütgenbach evacuated as winds pushed smoke toward the German border. Euronews reported that Germany's defense ministry said Monday it would send two military water-bombing helicopters to help, and that the German town of Monschau ordered close to 30 residents on two streets near the frontier to evacuate as a precaution.

More than 250 emergency personnel, including over 100 Belgian and German firefighters, plus police, military and civil protection staff, have been deployed, Liège provincial governor Hervé Jamar said in a statement reported by the AP. Firefighting helicopters from Belgium's federal police and the Netherlands have also been flying water drops. Belgian newspaper Le Soir, quoted by The Guardian, put it bluntly: "This is no longer just a warning."

Light rain Monday helped stop the fire's eastward push toward Germany, though Euronews reported the blaze continued growing in the northeast. Interior Minister Bernard Quintin said on X that firefighters had managed to keep the fire from spreading west toward Monschau, according to a report carried by AsiaOne.

Greece's death toll and a fast-moving island fire

Two people died Sunday in the village of Peristeria on the island of Salamina, west of Athens, when a fast-moving blaze fueled by near gale-force winds swept toward residential areas, Greek fire officials said. Fire Brigadier General Vasileios Vathrakogiannis said the conditions "enabled the fire to quickly reach dangerous proportions and spread rapidly within seven minutes toward nearby residential areas," according to the AP.

A second fire broke out in the Selini area of the same island. Coast guard and firefighting vessels evacuated roughly 500 to 570 beachgoers, figures reported by both the AP and Euronews, which cited a coastguard spokesperson speaking to AFP. Around 260 firefighters, 15 ground teams, 10 aircraft and eight helicopters responded across the two blazes.

Euronews reported that 36 separate wildfires broke out across Greece in a single 24-hour span, according to the country's fire department, and noted Greece had largely escaped the earlier heatwave that scorched much of Europe before being hit with major fires since late July.

Spain, Croatia and Portugal add to the toll

A Spanish soldier died Sunday helping fight a major wildfire in Aragon, in the country's northeast, the region's leader said, according to Breitbart. Authorities deployed what Breitbart described as the largest firefighting arsenal in the region's history, with French reinforcements headed in to help contain a blaze that has threatened a monastery roughly 1,000 years old.

Croatian police arrested four people suspected of deliberately starting some of the wildfires that have burned pine forests and olive groves along the Adriatic coast, Breitbart reported. No further detail on the specific charges or evidence against the suspects was available in available reporting, and no trial date has been set.

In Portugal, hundreds of firefighters battled multiple blazes near the Spanish border, including fires at Boticas and Chaves, Euronews reported, citing the country's civil protection agency. Five firefighters sustained minor injuries near the village of Dine when their vehicle caught fire.

Context and causes

The Belgium fire's scale and the Salamina deaths are the significant new developments this weekend. Earlier fires this summer, including the Psatha blaze near Athens that killed a police officer and a Danish helicopter pilot in a collision on Aug. 3, and the Paros wildfire that forced evacuations in late July, are part of the broader pattern of fires in the region.

Euronews noted that Europe's summer has already contributed to the deaths of thousands of people, a figure tied to heat-related mortality rather than fires directly, and scientists cited by the outlet attribute the more frequent, more intense heatwaves to human-caused climate change. No single fire's cause has been formally attributed to that broader trend by investigators. Belgian authorities have not announced an official cause for the High Fens fire, and Breitbart reported its origins remain unknown.

The immediate question now is whether Monday's rain in Belgium holds. Crews are still working to secure the eastern flank near the municipal forest that Dahmen flagged as the top priority, and forecasters have not indicated how long the wetter weather will last before heat returns to the region.