Five helicopters have already been deployed to extinguish an exceptionally large fire on a military training ground in the Netherlands: plume of smoke visible in England | News

In the province of Gelderland, centrally located in the Netherlands, an exceptionally large wildfire broke out at a military training area around noon. The smoke from the fire has even reached England. Five army helicopters have already been deployed to try to extinguish the fire. Extinguishing the fire could take days, authorities warn.

The fire captivates the whole of the Netherlands. Various news sites are closely monitoring the situation with live blogs, livestreams and additional news broadcasts. The clouds of smoke can be seen and smelled as far away as Amsterdam and the surrounding area and have even reached England. Satellite images show the plume of smoke moving over Norwich. The plume was clearly visible off the coast of England around 5 p.m.

The wildfire started at the end of the morning during an exercise on the shooting range of the military training area at ‘t Harde on the Veluwe. It is not yet known whether the fire was caused by the exercise. The Dutch military police – a military service that carries out police tasks – is investigating this. The soldiers who took part in the exercise have been evacuated. It is not known how many there were.

The fire brigade deployed many people and equipment to extinguish the fire. Five air force helicopters have now been deployed. The Defense Helicopter Command (DHC) reports via X that four Chinook and a Cougar have been sent to the area on the Veluwe. These are two different types of transport helicopters.

With so-called Bambi Buckets they can collect water near the fire, which they can release above the fire sources. With a nebulizer, a kind of shower head under the water bag, it is possible to spray a larger area at once. The Bambi Bucket model that the heavy Chinook helicopters carry is the largest. This allows up to 7,600 liters of water to be carried.

The fire brigade expects to have the fire under control within a few hours, but extinguishing it could take days.

There is an increased risk of wildfires in almost all of the Netherlands, and code orange has also been declared in Flanders since Tuesday because it has not rained for a while. In the past, it often happened that a wildfire started during or as a result of military exercises, also in our country. In 2021, there was a devastating wildfire on the Groot Schietveld site in Wuustwezel, which broke out during shooting exercises.