European Wildfires Have Another Risk: Old Bombs

Europe's wildfire problem now carries an unexpected risk from the past. As blazes sweep through forests and dried-out riverbeds, they're setting off or uncovering unexploded munitions left behind by the two world wars, putting emergency crews and residents at new risk, reports the Independent. Fire-driven detonations have been reported in France, Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands, with bomb-disposal teams called in as flames approach former battlefields and bombardment zones.

Researchers say rising temperatures are stripping away the conditions that kept this ordnance largely inert: steady rain, cooler temperatures, and dense undergrowth. Hotter, drier summers and strong winds turn old front lines into fire zones, where heat can trigger buried shells and mines or expose them for the first time in decades. Belgium's military now fields thousands of calls a year to deal with leftover munitions, while receding rivers like the Danube and Rhine have revealed wartime bombs and naval mines. "Climate change is now doing the work of unburying and reactivating what was previously stable," says scholar Sarah Njeri of London's School of Oriental and African Studies, per CBS News.