DThis summer there were fires in many of Europe’s forests, including Germany. Parts of Saxon Switzerland have been on fire for two weeks, and the situation is worse than ever. Hundreds of firefighters from several federal states are tirelessly trying to extinguish the fire. 15 helicopters from the Bundeswehr, police and private providers are in use almost non-stop. They dip containers into the Elbe and fly the water up into the mountains, where, directed by emergency services on the ground, they extinguish it with pinpoint accuracy. They have already transported many millions of liters of water, but it is not all enough. 150 hectares of forest are in flames. What would help would be rain, but it hardly ever falls.
It’s been like this for years. The climate is getting hotter, the soil is getting drier, the fires are getting bigger. In the future, the Germans will have to change their forest in order to preserve it. You have to thin it out, cut aisles and remove dead wood. The forest is then no longer the same, but at least it is still there.