General and permanent smoking and fire ban in Flemish forest and nature areas from Monday

“Flanders already has so little nature, then we have to do everything we can to protect it as well as possible,” says Demir. The N-VA minister points out that “drought situations” are increasingly occurring in various Flemish nature and forest areas, and these can “very quickly entail an acute risk of fire hazard”.

In order to avoid any additional risk of fire, from smoking or starting a fire, a temporary ban has already been placed on making fires and smoking in the forests and a number of nature reserves. This ban applies as soon as the risk of wildfires is color coded yellow, orange or red. However, the ban, which takes effect from Monday, is more general. In nature areas that fall under a nature management plan, in forests and in nature reserves, such a general smoking and fire ban will apply all year round.

Because the ban applies all year round, enforcement is also easier, says Demir. The permanent ban takes into account the use of the demarcated places and bivouac zones for camp and cooking fires, which remains possible if the risk codes allow it.

Drought puts farmers in trouble

Due to the capping ban, it is no longer possible to irrigate in agriculture anywhere with water from watercourses. It doesn’t look like it will rain in the coming week and problems for agriculture and nature are piling up. The KMI is announcing a heat wave for this week, additional measures may soon be taken to cope with the drought.