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Firefighters in the burning bog in the Netherlands
Photo: IMAGO/ROB ENGELAAR / IMAGO/ANP
In a moor area in the south of the Netherlands near the border with North Rhine-Westphalia, firefighters have been fighting a moor fire since Wednesday morning.
In order to contain the fire in the Mariapeel area near the municipality of Horst, firefighters set fires all around themselves, according to the security authorities in the north of the province of Limburg.
According to this, around 40 hectares of moor burned.
In the evening, the authorities reported that the fire was under control - but it could take days for the flames to be completely smothered.
people were not injured.
However, the authorities advised that windows and doors in the area should be kept closed.
Because of falling temperatures, the smoke will probably stay low above the ground for a while.
Access to the site west of the border town of Venlo has been banned.
Residents ignore evacuation advice
The residents of around 30 houses near the fire area were advised to leave their homes.
But most people stayed at home because they weren't too worried.
Two years ago, a moor fire also raged nearby for weeks, destroying 800 square meters of natural space.
Peat fires have special consequences for the environment: They consist largely of peat and are therefore natural carbon stores.
When peat burns, carbon combines with oxygen over a large area, releasing huge amounts of climate-damaging carbon dioxide (CO₂).
In Germany, around seven percent of the local greenhouse gas emissions - and thus 53 million tons of CO2 equivalents every year - come from peatlands.
This is mainly due to the drainage: More than 90 percent of the moors in Germany have been drained over the years, primarily for agricultural use (read more about Germany's moors and their climate influence here).
No country in the world has done this as extensively as Germany.
kko/dpa
