A huge fire broke out in a popular forest in west Berlin next to a police ammunition dump on Thursday, sending clouds of smoke into the sky and triggering intermittent explosions.
The army sent a tank to evacuate munitions from the affected depot and remote-controlled demining robots, while drones circled the air to assess the emergency.
The ammunition situation was “extremely extraordinary,” said Berlin fire department spokesman Thomas Kirstein, adding that it was “under control and there was no danger to the people of Berlin.”
However, the fire is expected to continue for some time, he said.
Firefighters called to the scene in the middle of the night were met with intermittent explosions that threw debris and hampered their work.
They have only been able to begin addressing two of the four hotspots in the affected 15,000 square meter (161,500 square foot) area so far, as explosions at the ammunition dump were still rocking the area.
No one was injured by the fires, which broke out on a day when a new heat wave was about to sweep Germany.
Officials have set up a safety chain to allow firefighters to begin work about a kilometer from the ammunition storage zone.
The store contains ammunition discovered by the police, but also duds from WWII that are regularly dug up during construction work.
Police said they are investigating what started the fire.
Authorities urged the public to avoid the forest, popular with locals and tourists alike, as several regional train lines have been halted.
But authorities said no fire-fighting helicopters were available as they were already being used to fight wildfires in eastern Germany.
– heat wave –
The German capital is rarely hit by forest fires, despite being one of the greenest cities in the world with 29,000 hectares of forest.
Brandenburg, the area around Berlin and parts of eastern Germany have been fighting forest fires for days.
Scientists say climate change is making heat waves more frequent and intense around the world, increasing the risk of fires.
Temperatures in parts of Germany are expected to rise to 40 degrees Celsius on Thursday. In Berlin they should reach 38 °C.
After a scorching Thursday, heavy thunderstorms are expected to sweep across the country from the west on Friday, the German Weather Service said.
A cold front is expected to drop temperatures in western Germany by more than 10 degrees overnight, dropping to around 20 to 25 degrees on Friday.
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