Forest and Cropland Fires in Germany: 2 August 1999
2 August 1999
The summer heat increases the fire danger in Northern Germany.
Numerous forest fires and several hundred hectares grain and stubble fields burned in the state of Brandenburg. Most likely reason for starting the fires were agricultural harvest machinery.
Two fire crew members had suffered from heavy fire injuries at an enormous blaze on Friday when they were surrounded by the flames on their fire engine.
On Friday the Ministry of Agriculture in Potsdam had issued the forest fire-warning “four”, the highest in Germany, in four counties (Prignitz, Havelland, Oberhavel, and Teltow-Fläming). It is expected that the fire danger will increase furtherdue to the persistent dryness.
330 fire fighters fought a forest fire in the state Lower Saxony at the airport of Celle, on Saturday. The flames destroyed an area of ca. 4.6 ha. A jump-over of the fire to the airfield was prevented. The fire cause isn’t cleared yet.
70 fire department people were in action on a stubble field fire in the state Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. The smoke cloud was visible in a distance of 20 kilometers. The fire department people contained the fire.
A forest fire destroyed 24 hectares woods at Detmold in the night to the Sunday.
Several fires were also reported in the state of Schleswig-Holstein over the weekend.
A weather forecast for Germany: The hot weather remains till Wednesday. On Thursday a low pressure area brings rain, primarily west of the Rhine, in Baden-Württemberg and in south Bavaria. The high summer temperatures remain approximately until the next weekend.
These informations were extracted out of news articles from Berlin online and Hamburg online.
