Authorities have allowed roughly 1,800 evacuated residents to return to their homes in Gey, a village in western Germany's Hürtgenwald municipality, after firefighters halted the spread of a massive forest fire that had approached within metres of houses.
North Rhine-Westphalia state premier Hendrik Wüst said the situation had been stabilised, and authorities suspended helicopter water drops by Saturday evening. The blaze, which scorched approximately 300 hectares of forest since Thursday, was complicated by unexploded Second World War ordnance in the woods that detonated during initial firefighting efforts. Deputy Premier Mona Neubaur called the fire historic in scale for the state. Interior Minister Herbert Reul suspected human negligence caused the blaze, while Agriculture Minister Silke Gorißen warned the public to avoid forests as no significant rain is forecast.
Meanwhile, a far larger fire in Belgium's High Fens region has burned some 2,700 hectares and remains out of control, prompting partial evacuations of two villages.