Fleeing the flames: Evacuation due to forest fire

Created: 06/19/2022Updated: 06/19/2022, 17:46

Firefighters stand together to discuss the operation.

© David Inderlied/dpa/Symbolbild

Hundreds of firefighters and Bundeswehr soldiers are fighting blazing fires in the dry pine forest on the ground and from the air: a horror scenario that is not the first time that Treuenbrietzen has experienced.

And that's where danger lurks.

Treuenbrietzen - Dark clouds over the forest, biting smoke in the air, a dramatic fight against the flames: Hundreds of people had to get to safety at the weekend from a forest fire near Treuenbrietzen in Brandenburg.

Since Friday, the fire brigade and the Bundeswehr have been fighting the fire on the ground and with firefighting helicopters - but changing winds fanned it out again in the heat and drought.

The situation is coming to a head dramatically, said Brandenburg's Interior Minister Michael Stübgen (CDU) on Sunday.

Prime Minister Dietmar Woidke (SPD) also informed himself on site.

At the same time, another bad news came from the same Potsdam-Mittelmark district on Sunday: Another forest fire broke out near Beelitz-Heilstätten, about 20 kilometers away.

The fire is out of control, and Beelitz may be threatened with evacuation, Mayor Bernhard Knuth told the German Press Agency.

The fire is one and a half kilometers from the city.

The fire broke out on Friday in a pine forest on 60 hectares near Treuenbrietzen - about 80 kilometers southwest of Berlin and 40 kilometers from Potsdam.

The situation seemed to stabilize on Saturday: the flames were contained to 40 hectares.

But on Sunday night there was talk of around 100 hectares of fire area, on Sunday it was already 200 hectares.

That corresponds to about 280 soccer fields.

In 2018 there was a forest fire on 400 hectares in the same area.

The situation was initially less bad than it was then, but the authorities were again forced to evacuate several districts of Treuenbrietzen with a total of 620 residents for safety.

These included Frohnsdorf, Tiefenbrunnen and Klausdorf.

The town hall in Treuenbrietzen served as emergency accommodation for the people affected.

Many stayed with friends or relatives.

People left their homes calmly, quickly and without stress, with suitcases and bags, with dogs and cats, as the district spokeswoman Andrea Metzler said.

"You know how it works, many were already in the situation in 2018 with the big forest fire." Some residents made their private pools available to the emergency services: the water was pumped out with vehicles and used to extinguish the forest fire.

The town of Treuenbrietzen with a total of 7500 inhabitants has about a dozen districts.

Overall, it spreads over an area of ​​more than 200 square kilometers.

For comparison: Berlin has almost 900 square kilometers.

So the fire, dramatic as it was, did not threaten the entire city.

The town center was almost deserted on Sunday afternoon, as a dpa reporter reported.

There was a faint smell of scorching in the air.

A police barrier was set up at the roundabout on the B102.

Vehicles from the Federal Agency for Technical Relief drove through the town with blue lights flashing.

A blue police water cannon had arrived to support the extinguishing work.

The fire brigade was heading towards the blocked B102 with large fire trucks.

Behind them drove a column of the German Red Cross with several vans.

The fight of around 500 firefighters - according to the district they should be increased to 750 - against the flames in the area is particularly difficult: because there are ammunition and explosive ordnance in the ground of a former explosive and training area, the firefighters do not come directly to the fire approach.

If the fire goes through the area, ammunition hidden in the ground can explode.

In dozens of fire-fighting flights, Bundeswehr helicopters therefore took tens of thousands of liters of water from a nearby quarry pond and extinguished it from above.

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Brandenburg's Interior Minister Stübgen said on Sunday that the Bundeswehr had promised three more helicopters for immediate use.

"All emergency services are doing a great job in view of the difficult and dramatically worsening situation." The crisis team in the Ministry of the Interior is on duty.

Stübgen appealed to everyone to follow the requests of the emergency services and to get to safety.

"This mission will take a lot of energy," he said.

dpa