Berlin plays safe after fire at explosive site in forest

A highway in Berlin remains blocked as firefighters continue to tackle a blaze in in the city's Grunewald forest.

The German army has been providing support, including the deployment of heavy firefighting vehicles

Firefighters were seeking to fully extinguish the blaze at Berlin's city ordnance disposal area on Monday, days after fire broke out caused by an explosion at the site.

The goal was to reduce the size of the area at risk, officials said, adding that the situation was stable but not yet fully under control.

What's the latest on the fire?

A spokesperson for the fire department said people would start working on the site once it was certain that it was safe. The presence of explosives at the compound meant the operation has been treated with a higher degree of caution than normal.

"We hope to be able to cool down further there with robots and firefighting tanks so that we can then go into the area," the spokesperson told the AFP news agency.

Berlin Fire Brigade spokesman Mario Witt had said on Sunday that the plan was to get closer to the fenced-off blasting site area at the heart of the blaze. Although the main fire is out, many small blazes continued, he said.

According to estimates, the fire department operation will continue for days with firefighters — using high-tech surveillance equipment — looking for still-smoldering embers.

BERLIN GRUNEWALD THREATENED BY FIRE AND EXPLOSIONS
Explosions in a dry forest
A police ammunition dump in a Berlin forest was shaken by explosions Thursday morning. After an especially long dry spell this summer, the forest was bone-dry and immediately caught fire.
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Fire officials were expected to say later on Monday whether a section of highway known as the AVUS could reopen.

Train services along a stretch of rail, parallel to the road but slightly further from the heart of the fire, started operating again on Saturday.

What happened at the site?

Berlin's fire department deployed an array of specialized equipment to the forest, where a blaze, thought to have been sparked by an explosion in the early hours of Thursday, ripped through tinder-dry woodland.

An initially affected area of some 1.5 hectares spread to about 50 hectares (about 123 acres) by Thursday evening, before firefighters were able to get close enough to properly extinguish the fire.

The site was set up in Cold War-era West Berlin in 1950; 25 metric tons or more of fireworks, World War II ammunition and other explosive ordnance had been stored there before the fire began.

The 200 by 200 meter compound is used by Berlin's explosive ordnance disposal service to store, defuse and detonate munitions — primarily those still being discovered to this day and dating from World War II. It's also used for the storage and disposal of confiscated fireworks.