A fire broke out in the Grunewald forest in Berlin on Thursday morning after explosives detonated at an ammunition depot. The fire spreads over the nature reserve. According to the local fire brigade It concerns a fire over an area of 15,000 square meters of forest. The firefighters have closed the area to traffic for a surrounding radius of 1,000 meters. The adjacent train traffic has also been shut down. As far as is known, no injuries have been reported.
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In German media, the fire service says that the flames are “spreading in a controlled manner”. “That worries us,” said a spokesperson against Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. The explosions could be heard in the night from Wednesday to Thursday, in the early morning about a hundred firefighters arrived. The police also came to the rescue with water cannons to get the blaze under control. The fire service expects to be busy putting out the fire for the rest of the day. It is still unclear how the fire in the depot could have started.
The fire was difficult to contain as several ammunition parts exploded and many fragments flew through the air. The fire service does not expect any immediate danger to local residents and their homes: the nearest residential area is about two kilometers from the area. They were asked to keep windows and doors closed. Germany, like many other European countries, has to deal with persistent drought, which means that the flames can easily spread over the wooded area.