European wildfires detonate bombs and mines

“The wildfires burning across Europe this summer have exposed a potentially deadly threat lurking beneath the blackened landscape: rusty bombs and mines from World War I and II that threaten crews responding to the flames.Some of the weapons have exploded in the intense heat. Blasts have been reported in France, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands,” reports CBS News.

Steady temperatures and predictable rainfall once ensured that most buried weapons stayed dormant. But this wildfire season was supercharged by heavy rains in January that spurred vegetation growth, which became kindling when the summer heat arrived. Those temperatures, combined with drought conditions, low humidity and stiff winds, offered an ideal environment for fire. The blazes have led to mass evacuations. During World War II, booby traps, bombs and mines were scattered throughout a Belgian province’s dense peat-bog forest known as the High Fens, which was the site of massive battles, including the bloody Battle of the Bulge. Now, there is a huge blaze there.

In other news, German robots recently hunted the North Sea for unexploded bombs from World War II.