Walloon opposition challenges government over lessons from High Fens fire

Walloon opposition parties challenged the regional government in Namur on Wednesday, 26 August, over its preparation for the High Fens

Place

High Fens

Eastern Walloon landscape where the August 2026 wildfire occurred.

Why it matters

Eastern Walloon landscape where the August 2026 wildfire occurred.

About

The High Fens, which were declared a nature reserve in 1957, are an upland area, a plateau region in Liège Province, in the east of Belgium and adjoining parts of northwestern Germany, between the Ardennes and the Eifel highlands. The High Fens are the largest nature reserve or park in Belgium, with an area of 4,501.2 ha ; it lies within the German-Belgian natural park Hohes Venn-Eifel, in the Ardennes.

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The questioning followed the blaze that began near Baelen at about 13:00 on 14 August. It spread across roughly 3,000 hectares of the High Fens before being brought largely under control, according to updates from the Walloon authorities. Firefighters from across Belgium worked alongside the Civil Protection service, the military, police, Wallonia’s Department of Nature and Forests and foreign teams. Residents in several nearby communities were evacuated as a precaution. No deaths were reported and no homes were destroyed.

Those outcomes formed the government’s strongest defence: an exceptionally difficult fire in dry, peat-rich terrain was contained without loss of life. MR federal MP and Jalhay mayor Victoria Vandeberg, who participated in the provincial crisis operation, said the chain of command had functioned and reinforcements had arrived as conditions changed. In an MR statement after the federal hearing, she called attempts to pass a final judgement while crews were still working a form of “political theatre”, while accepting that Belgium must review its aerial capacity, prevention and preparedness.

The Walloon opposition drew a different distinction. Its argument was not principally that firefighters had failed, but that political preparation before the first flames may have been inadequate. The Socialist Party, Ecolo and the Workers’ Party of Belgium (PTB) questioned whether access to the reserve should have been restricted earlier, whether sufficient surveillance and firebreak planning existed, and what had become of previous proposals for an integrated wildfire strategy. The criticism conveyed an “impression that no lesson has been learned”, as the debate was reported by 7sur7 and Belga.

PTB Walloon MP Julien Liradelfo had already asked why the High Fens remained open when the fire risk was elevated and whether personnel and equipment were mobilised quickly enough. His party requested urgent hearings at both levels of government. Before the blaze, the Socialist group had also pointed to a resolution it tabled in October 2025 for an integrated forest-fire strategy and invoked the inquiry into the fatal 2021 floods, which identified weaknesses in Wallonia’s culture of risk management.

That history makes the dispute more than a quarrel over one emergency response. The July 2021 floods killed 39 people in Wallonia and led the regional parliament to examine warning systems, coordination and institutional readiness. The High Fens also suffered substantial fires in 2011 and 2023. Opposition parties therefore see a recurring gap between identifying a changing hazard and converting that knowledge into standing plans, budgets and operational capacity. The government and its majority partners counter that preparation cannot eliminate every disaster and that a credible assessment must be based on a structured review rather than conclusions reached during the emergency.

Belgium’s division of powers complicates the account of responsibility. Wallonia controls forests, nature conservation, land management and much of the preventive policy affecting the reserve. Provincial authorities direct a provincial emergency phase, while federal competences include Civil Protection, national crisis coordination, the federal police and Defence support. Municipalities issue local safety measures, and the EU Civil Protection Mechanism can supply foreign aircraft or specialised teams. The absence of a federal emergency phase became one subject of questioning at the Chamber, but it does not by itself establish that coordination failed.

The fire also tested that European layer. Belgium used international assistance as several European countries were fighting major fires of their own. Vandeberg described recourse to the EU mechanism as its intended purpose rather than evidence of national failure. Even so, reliance on shared aircraft raises a practical question: what happens when many member states require the same scarce capacity at once?

For residents and businesses around Baelen, Waimes, Bütgenbach, Eupen and Jalhay, the immediate issue remains safety rather than parliamentary blame. Roads reopened on 25 August with restrictions, but access to the affected forests remained prohibited. Wallonia said about 100 responders were still tackling flare-ups in the northern and eastern sectors that evening, while reinforced monitoring had not identified a drinking-water risk. The burnt peat, weakened trees, possible old munitions and concealed hot spots mean the landscape cannot simply reopen when visible flames disappear.

The next meaningful test will be whether the committee debate produces a published after-action review with responsibilities, deadlines and funding. Parliament is likely to revisit forest access rules, surveillance, firebreaks, aerial support and cooperation across Belgium’s levels of government during the 2024-2029 regional term. Investigators must still establish how the fire started, and authorities have not yet published a definitive ecological damage assessment. Until those findings arrive, claims about the cause or about individual operational failures remain premature.