The fire broke out in the early hours of Thursday after an unexploded engineer accidentally detonated, according to Berlin police. The forest, in the German capital’s affluent Grunewald district, is popular with city dwellers, from swimmers to dog walkers. The fire took place over an area of approximately 1.5 hectares (3.7 acres). About 100 firefighters are at the scene but have been unable to get within 1,000 meters of the flames due to a series of explosions caused by the heat. Berlin’s fire service said dry conditions had already made the forest vulnerable to wildfires. An unprecedented number of forest fires in other parts of Germany also means there is a shortage of firefighting helicopters to tackle the blaze. The police site is used to store unexploded ordnance, ranging from confiscated illegal fireworks to World War II ammunition which is regularly discovered on construction sites across the city. Controlled blasts are periodically carried out by experts at the site to safely dispose of the stockpile, but no blasts have been carried out since June due to dry conditions, resulting in more explosives being stored there than usual. Fire engines and ambulances on standby in the Grunewald forest in Berlin. Photo: Christophe Gateau/AP The fire also closed a section of the S-Bahn, disrupting public transport across the city and disrupting long-distance trains to Amsterdam, and closed the Avus motorway. The nearest residential building was nearly 2 miles away, and people in the area were told by cellphone and radio alerts to close windows and doors and turn off air conditioners. Clouds of thick gray smoke dominated the horizon and the sounds of explosions could be heard for miles. No injuries were reported. Police and fire services were using drones and helicopters to measure the progress of the fire and took containment measures to stop it spreading, including watering the edge of the forest. A spokesman said three separate flames were spotted. The intensity of the heat was holding forces back, he said, adding that there was a need to bring in new firefighters frequently because of heat-related exhaustion. Reinforcements have been called in from other areas of Germany. Subscribe to First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every morning at 7am. BST Jan Thomsen, of Berlin’s environment department, said the lack of rain meant the fire was able to catch on quickly. He said the forests were dry and “failed to recover due to long periods of drought”. Asked by reporters if it made sense to have an explosives site in a forest, he said: “We will have to deal with these safety issues once the cause of the fire is established.”
