Hundreds of firefighters in eastern Belgium pushed on Tuesday to fully encircle a wildfire that has burned through 3,000 hectares — roughly half the size of Manhattan — making it one of the largest blazes the country has seen in over a hundred years. The fire has been raging since Friday across the High Fens, known in French as the Hautes Fagnes, a protected nature reserve of peatland, pine forests and hiking trails straddling Belgium's border with Germany. While much of the fire has been contained, a hard-to-reach front near the German border remained a serious concern, with gusty easterly winds complicating efforts on the ground.

At peak mobilisation, around 500 emergency personnel and 120 vehicles were deployed, alongside firefighting helicopters and aircraft from the Netherlands, Germany, Norway and Sweden. However, aerial operations were suspended on Tuesday after fog and worsening weather settled over the region, grounding the aircraft and slowing the push to fully surround the blaze. "This day will likely be decisive if firefighters succeed in their strategy of encircling the fire," crisis cell spokesman Tony Hosmans said. "If that happens, the fire will be completely surrounded, and we can hope to stop its advance."

The scale of the disaster prompted evacuations on both sides of the border. In Germany, parts of the border town of Monschau were cleared of residents, while in Belgium the communities of Leykaul and Küchelscheid, in the municipality of Bütgenbach, remained evacuated. Residents of Sourbrodt, in the nearby municipality of Waimes, were permitted to return home as conditions in that area stabilised.

The High Fens fire is the most visible symbol of a broader climate-driven crisis gripping Europe this summer. Successive intense heatwaves and a continent-wide drought have devastated agricultural output, with French vegetable yields down by as much as 25 to 60 percent depending on the crop, and the country's maize harvest forecast to fall 35 percent below last year's levels. Scientists and farmers alike have pointed to accelerated, human-caused climate change and an unusually powerful El Niño weather pattern as key drivers of the extreme conditions.

For Belgium, the psychological and ecological weight of the High Fens fire is considerable. The reserve is one of the country's most treasured natural landscapes, home to rare bog ecosystems that take centuries to form. The loss of 3,000 hectares of peatland is not only an environmental blow but a stark illustration of how climate-linked extreme weather events, once rare, are becoming part of Europe's new normal.