BAELEN, Belgium (AP) — Firefighters battled a massive wildfire in eastern Belgium on Sunday that has burned about 30 square kilometers (12 square miles) in the High Fens, a large nature reserve, in one of the country’s worst wildfires in recent history.

About 600 residents in the nearby municipalities of Waimes and Bütgenbach, in Liège province near the German border, were told to evacuate Saturday as winds shifted and smoke spread through the area. Authorities also advised tourists to leave, while a nearby gymnasium was opened to receive evacuees.

Liège provincial governor Hervé Jamar said in a statement Sunday that more than 250 emergency personnel have been deployed, including over 100 Belgian and German firefighters, as well as police and military officers and civil protection staff. Firefighting helicopters operated by Belgium’s federal police and the Netherlands also helped.

René Dahmen, chief engineer at the Department of Nature and Forest, said the fire was still spreading Sunday in an area that was difficult for crews to reach.

“On the eastern flank, there’s a line at least a kilometer long where the fire is slowly advancing toward a municipal forest,” Dahmen said. “That’s the first priority now; we deployed resources last night, and the firefighters are ready, in case it gets too close.”

“The situation is extremely difficult,” Dahmen added. “We need helicopter support.”

Authorities said no homes had been affected as of Sunday morning, though the fire remained close to residential areas and heavy smoke persisted. They urged people to stay away from the fire zone, warning that unnecessary traffic could obstruct emergency vehicles and complicate firefighting operations.

European countries send firefighting aircraft

Belgium activated the European Union’s civil protection mechanism to receive assistance from other countries, EU Commissioner Hadja Lahbib, who is in charge of crisis management, said on X.

“The High Fens are burning. Belgium is not facing it alone,” Lahbib said. Sweden sent two water-bombing aircraft, while three helicopters — two from the Netherlands and one from the Czech Republic — were also being deployed.

The fire follows weeks of unusually hot and dry weather. The High Fens’ mix of heathland and peat bogs has complicated efforts to contain the flames.

Belgium was hit by another spell of intense heat this week, with temperatures reaching about 37 C (98.6 F) in parts of the country Friday.

Dry conditions fuel record-breaking Belgium wildfire

The blaze has far surpassed a 2011 fire that burned nearly 14 square kilometers (5.4 square miles) in the same area and was previously Belgium’s previous largest wildfire on record, according to data from the European Forest Fire Information System.

Nicolas Yernaux, a spokesperson for the Public Service of Wallonia, said conditions were much worse this time. “We’re dealing with something much deeper because we have very dry soil,” he said.

In the nearby town of Monschau, in Germany, local authorities warned Sunday that the fire was about 1.5 kilometers (just under a mile) from the border. The blaze is not currently expected to reach German territory — but the smoke is.

A little further inside Germany, emergency services were making significant progress in fighting a fire in the Hürtgen forest that forced evacuations on Friday. The roughly 2,000 people who had to leave the village of Gey were able to return home on Saturday evening, German news agency dpa reported.

On Sunday morning, the local government in Düren said there were no longer any open flames, and that the affected area was now surrounded by a roughly 3-meter (10-foot) cleared cordon to prevent the fire from spreading further.

Wildfires burn in France and the U.K.

In France, firefighters battling a wildfire in a pine forest in the southwestern Landes region faced no major flare-ups overnight, Landes Prefect Gilles Clavreul said. Authorities estimated the total area burned at 17 square kilometers (6.6 square miles), while about 650 people had been evacuated from their homes.

It was the third major wildfire in the vast pine forests of southwestern France this summer, following two others in late July. A massive wildfire in the neighboring Gironde department burned about 420 square kilometers (162 square miles) and forced the evacuation of about 220,000 people as it spread toward the Atlantic coast and the Bordeaux area.

In the U.K., emergency crews were fighting 14 wildfires in South Wales with the support of military personnel. Authorities warned that although the heat wave is easing, drought conditions mean the risk of wildfires remains high.

Fires gutted more than a dozen homes in the West Midlands in central England this week as officials recorded the hottest day of the year on Thursday, when temperatures reached 38.1 C (100.6 F).

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Corbet reported from Paris. AP writers Sylvia Hui in London and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed.