From an ammunition depot, a fire breaks out in Berlin’s largest forest

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This kind of event is extremely rare for the German capital, one of the most wooded large cities in the world.

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Explosions, smoke, disrupted transport… A fire broke out in Berlin’s largest forest on Wednesday August 3, from a police ammunition depot. The Berlin sky took on very unusual appearances heart of summer, with wisps of white smoke visible over Grunewald. At regular intervals, explosions sounded in the morning of Thursday.

“The fire is still not under control and continues to spread, the situation is totally unusual because we have munitions of war” on the site, which prevent relief from being deployed, Thomas Kirstein, spokesperson for the Berlin fire department, told AFP on Thursday. A one kilometer safety zone around the ammunition storage area has been established. Firefighters are positioned around.

“The fire spread over an area of ​​15 000 square meters, first on a police ammunition and explosives storage and defusing site, then in the surrounding forest”, according to firefighters. This depot, installed in Grunewald, is responsible for carrying out controlled explosions of devices entrusted to it, including World War II bombs, still a legion to be buried in the Berlin basement.

It is very rare that the German capital is the victim of such fires. But with the drought affecting all of Europe, it is increasingly threatened due to the importance of its wooded areas, a particularity of this metropolis of 4 million inhabitants. Berlin has 29,000 hectares of forest, making it one of the most forested capitals in the world. Much of it is now dry.


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