European wildfires kill at least three as Belgium battles largest modern blaze

An elderly couple died outside their home on the Greek island of Salamis on Sunday as Europe entered a new phase of catastrophic wildfire season. They were found in the Peristeria beach area, according to Greece's coastguard. More than 500 residents were ordered to leave the island as flames spread across the Aegean. The couple's death marked the beginning of a grim weekend across the continent—one that would claim at least three lives and displace thousands before Monday morning.

In Spain, a soldier was killed on Sunday while fighting a massive wildfire in Aragon that had burned for a week and now threatened a monastery dating back a thousand years. French firefighting crews were being mobilized to help contain the blaze in the northeastern region. Meanwhile, in Portugal, five firefighters were injured when their vehicle caught fire near the village of Dine, close to the Spanish border. Other Portuguese blazes were burning near Boticas and Chavez. The scale of the crisis had grown so large that individual fires were becoming difficult to track.

But the fire that dominated official attention was in Belgium. On Friday, a wildfire erupted in the High Fens, a sprawling nature reserve near the German border that draws hikers from across Europe. By early Sunday morning, it had consumed roughly 3,000 hectares—about 7,400 acres—of protected landscape. The blaze was described by authorities as the largest Belgium had experienced in its modern history, surpassing fires from a century earlier when the same region burned during a severe drought in 1911. About 600 people living in the municipalities of Waimes and Bütgenbach, in Liège province, received evacuation orders on Saturday. Tourists were also told to leave. Of those who complied, roughly 20 spent the night in a sports hall while others found shelter with family and friends.

The terrain itself made fighting the fire extraordinarily difficult. The High Fens is a fragile ecosystem of dense forest, peat bogs, and raised wooden boardwalks designed to protect the wetland. Heavy firefighting vehicles risked sinking into the soft ground, making traditional ground-based approaches nearly impossible. This meant air support became not just helpful but essential. Sweden sent two water-bombing aircraft. Belgium and the Netherlands each contributed two helicopters. Authorities closed access to Lake Bütgenbach on Sunday to allow these aircraft to refill without interference. Local farmers joined the effort too, using their tractors to haul water from Lake Robertville to the fire lines.

More than 250 firefighters and emergency personnel were mobilized, including crews from Germany who crossed the border to help their Belgian neighbors. Hervé Jamar, the governor of Liège, coordinated the multinational response. By Sunday afternoon, Belgium's interior minister Bernard Quintin visited the crisis center in Vottem and reported that two fire fronts—one toward Jalhay and another toward Monschau—had been brought under control. But conditions remained challenging. "On this third day of fighting the fires, all resources remain mobilised on the ground," Quintin wrote on social media, thanking European partners for their solidarity.

The fires were not isolated incidents but symptoms of a broader continental crisis. Much of Europe was gripped by intense heat, creating ideal conditions for wildfires to ignite and spread rapidly. In Croatia, a fire had engulfed homes in a holiday resort on Friday, killing one person, injuring 40, and forcing 1,200 to evacuate. Hundreds more were evacuated from villages in western Germany and southwestern France. In Greece, stranded holidaymakers were rescued from beaches threatened by advancing flames. In Spain, the army was deployed to save historical artifacts from burning buildings.

Scientists have long warned that human-caused climate breakdown is intensifying extreme weather globally, making heatwaves more severe, floods more destructive, and wildfires more frequent and deadly. The European Union issued warnings that pockets of "very extreme" wildfire conditions now stretched across the continent. What was once considered a seasonal hazard had become a cascading emergency requiring international coordination, military intervention, and the mobilization of resources from multiple nations simultaneously. The fires were still burning as the weekend ended, and forecasters saw no immediate relief.