Overview
- Fire crews at ’t Harde, which ignited Wednesday during a military exercise, were still dousing hotspots Friday with four firefighting platoons on site and smoke advisories in place.
- Large fires also broke out Thursday on the Oirschotse Heide and near Weert and Budel during range use, leading to NL-Alerts, road closures, the evacuation of Kempen Airport and a brief clearing of the Budel asylum center before conditions improved.
- Unexploded munitions on the ranges forced stand-off tactics that kept firefighters on paths while armored Defence vehicles, Chinook helicopters with water buckets, drones, and sand-and-water stoplines targeted flare-ups.
- Dozens of nature fires this week pushed Dutch capacity to the limit, prompting a European request that brought two platoons with eight wildfire vehicles from Germany and France on Friday, as the national coordinator said crews were nearly out of resources.
- The Marechaussee is investigating whether exercises sparked the blazes and if safety protocols were followed, while the armed forces chief said training will continue with extra preventive measures that could change how drills run under phase‑2 fire risk.