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European wildfires uncover unexploded shells, complicating firefighting
In parts of Europe this year, fires have dug up munitions and triggered detonations, forcing crews to adapt responses while the EU reports hundreds of thousands of hectares burned.
Insurance Business highlights that property underwriting in California has long focused on wildfire risk, but Europe’s current fire season adds a second hazard: burning ground that contains unexploded World War I and II ordnance.
The outlet reports that wildfires driven by drought and record heat have swept across countries including France, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands, and in some areas have led to the recovery or detonation of buried munitions. In France’s Le Porge near Bordeaux, officials said a wildfire uncovered roughly 400 shells and pieces of ammunition, and in eastern Belgium’s Liège province the regional governor confirmed sporadic detonations during recent fires.
Insurance Business adds that firefighting and bomb-disposal operations have been adjusted as a result. A Dutch bomb-disposal unit was sent to check a forest near a former WWII combat site, and the piece notes that while old ordnance is not new, fires are changing the equation by making previously inert materials more likely to become dangerous.
The article ties the trend to climate and scale, citing a German spokesperson who said heat can be enough to set ordnance off even without direct flame contact. It also points to research framing Europe’s “climatic luck” as running out, and to EU satellite data showing upwards of 500,000 hectares burned across the bloc by early August 2026, ahead of the same point in the year.