Sawt Falasteen - Belgium fire halts short of German border, but not 'contained'

The blaze charring the High Fens nature reserve, a vast expanse of boggy peatlands, pine forests and hiking trails, has grown since Friday to 3,000 hectares (7,500 acres) -- half the size of Manhattan.

Crisis cell spokesman Tony Hosmans told AFP Monday the fire was "had not spread further but we cannot yet say it is contained."

"It could change according to the weather," he warned.

Europe has been swept by weeks of devastating wildfires fuelled by dry conditions and a historically hot summer, with France, Greece, Portugal and Spain also battling major fires.

Hosmans confirmed the High Fens blaze was no longer advancing towards the German border after creeping nearer over the weekend, prompting an evacuation order in the town of Monschau.

Much-needed rain delivered some respite Monday to the 500 firefighters and emergency crews mobilised on site, but officials said conditions could shift fast.

Philipp Krueger, firefighting chief in Monschau, told reporters crews were preparing to deal with "strong winds" on Tuesday -- warning it was a challenging "new situation."

- 'Won't forget this' -

"We are continuing to do everything to ensure nobody finds themselves in immediate danger," the town's mayor Carmen Kramer told a news briefing.

At a community centre in Monschau, Ulrich and Petra Mertens were among a handful of evacuees who spent the night on stretcher beds, with their dogs Cleo and Kruemel at their side.

The couple made up their minds to leave as they saw flames burning on the horizon and the air became choked with foul-smelling fumes.

"We thought, let's do it," said Petra Mertens, a 63-year-old retired carer.

"The air was terrible, with the smoke we thought, 'There's no way we can do that to the dogs.'"

"I won't forget this any time soon," she told AFP. "You need time to process it all. You see just how quickly you could lose a home."

- Largest since 1911 -

The High Fens blaze broke out in an area that was ravaged by massive fires in 1911, during a similar period of heatwaves and drought.

It is the country's largest wildfire since, and Belgium's King Philippe visited the fire zone Monday in a show of support for the Herculean effort to contain it.

A huge area at the border has been blanketed by a thick plume of yellowish smoke, with fumes detected as far as eastern France, where authorities issued an air-pollution alert.

The smoke hazard also triggered the evacuation of two Belgian villages, whose residents were still under instruction to stay away.

- 'As long as it needs' -

On-site operations have been made much harder by the fens' terrain -- a patchwork of heath, peat bogs and raised wooden boardwalks where heavy vehicles risk sinking into the ground -- and firefighters struggle to tackle the fire at close range.

They have been counting heavily on aerial assistance to bring the situation under control.

Aerial reinforcements were on the way with two helicopters from Germany and two from Norway set to join water-bombing aircraft and helicopters from Sweden, the Netherlands and Belgium already on site.

Local farmers have also poured in to help, with a ballet of tractors pulling in tankers of water drawn from a nearby lake.

Romain Monet, a farmer from nearby Waremme, worked through the night -- with a colleague coming in to take over the day shift.

"We'll take it in turns as long as it needs -- the team is all set," he told AFP. "We'll keep going until the finish line."

Like much of Europe, Belgium has experienced a new spell of intense heat and drought in recent days.

Temperatures reached as high as 37C in some parts of the country on Friday, creating conditions conducive to wildfire outbreaks.

A.Suleiman--SF-PST