North Rhine-Westphalia's Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU) believes that the major forest fire in the Hürtgenwald was caused by human action. "The fire was started by some idiot, some idiot caused this fire," Reul said on Saturday during a visit to emergency crews at the scene. "That's why you have to think about how irresponsibly people run around in the area and simply throw things away. That's the real problem."
He had never seen a forest fire like the one in the Hürtgenwald, the CDU politician said: "It's a giant fire." Reul thanked the emergency services from the federal government and the individual states, as well as the volunteers, for their efforts. "1,400 people from the federal government and the states, everyone is helping out, I think that's magnificent," he said. "It's really something to experience how much willingness there is in our state to help one another."
Reul had no patience for criticism that the state of North Rhine-Westphalia does not have firefighting aircraft of its own. "This griping, I've had enough of it. Please gripe afterwards, that's the end of it." The most important thing now, he said, was to keep the fire under control. "What people care about is whether we can protect their houses," Reul said. "That's the only thing that interests them, and the rest is completely irrelevant to them. And the question of aircraft — I've already discussed that ten times."
North Rhine-Westphalia's Minister-President Hendrik Wüst (CDU) also arrived at the site of the operation in the Hürtgenwald in the afternoon. Wüst spoke with emergency crews about the situation and then planned to address the media. The fire service had previously announced that it had the fire under control. Light rain set in during the afternoon, which is expected to aid the firefighting effort.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) has been briefed on the current situation in view of the ongoing forest fire in North Rhine-Westphalia. In a telephone call on Saturday morning, Düren district administrator Ralf Nolten informed the Chancellor about the state of affairs in the fire areas, the district authority announced. During the conversation, Merz "expressly thanked all the helpers."
The federal government has also made additional firefighting helicopters available, the Düren district authority explained. Ten helicopters from the federal police, state police and the German armed forces are now available. Merz had already stated on Friday that he was being kept continuously informed about developments in the fire areas, and that the armed forces and federal police would provide assistance "wherever possible."
According to the authorities, the large forest fire near Hürtgenwald in North Rhine-Westphalia did not spread further during the night into Saturday. A total of 1,400 emergency personnel were fighting the largest and most damaging forest fire of the summer in Germany so far, using firefighting helicopters among other means, the Düren district authority reported. The Gey district, which was cleared during the night into Friday, remains evacuated for the time being for safety reasons.
Emergency services across the country have been battling numerous forest and open-land fires for days amid persistently hot and dry weather. Temperatures well above 30 degrees Celsius currently prevail across large parts of the country. According to the German Weather Service, rainfall is expected on Saturday.
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