From an ammunition depot, a fire breaks out in Berlin’s largest forest

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This kind of event is extremely rare for the German capital, one of the most wooded large cities in the world.

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Explosions, smoke, disrupted transport… A fire broke out in Berlin’s largest forest on Wednesday August 3, from a police ammunition depot. The Berlin sky took on very unusual appearances heart of summer, with wisps of white smoke visible over Grunewald. At regular intervals, explosions were held in the morning of Thursday.

“The fire is now well under control”explained, Thursday in the middle of the day, to AFP a spokesman for the firefighters. “But the situation is totally abnormal because we have ammunition of war” on the site, which warns the emergency services to treat themselves without precautions, he added. Firefighters brought in water from a nearby river and lake to try to douse the flames. A one kilometer safety zone around the ammunition storage area has been established.

“The fire was used on an area of ​​15 000 square meters, first on a police ammunition and explosives storage and defusing site, then in the surrounding forest”, according to firefighters. This depot, installed in Grunewald, is responsible for carrying out controlled explosions of devices attributed to it, including World War II bombs, still a legion to be buried underground in Berlin.

It is very rare for the German capital to be the victim of such fires. But with the drought affecting all of Europe, it is increasingly threatened due to the importance of its wooded areas, a particularity of this metropolis of 4 million inhabitants. Berlin has 29,000 hectares of forest, making it one of the most forested capitals in the world. Much of it is now dry.

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