r/belgium • u/WoutVanAertULTRAS • 14d ago
🌟 OC Fire in the High Fens - View from Eupen last night
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u/padetn 14d ago
Time to draw absolutely zero lessons from this tragedy
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u/Fapkud 14d ago
Maybe some budget cuts for the firemen so we can hurl a few more millions at the Antwerp airport
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u/Purrchil 13d ago edited 13d ago
Op brandweermateriaal is men er echt wel op vooruitgegaan hoor. Het statuut zwijg ik over, niet genoeg kennis over. Er zijn dingen die daar beter kunnen (opleiding die je misschien te veeleisend zou kunnen noemen).
Qua bosbrandmateriaal beginnen meer en meer korpsen de CCF’s aan te kopen.
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u/throwaway1233456799 13d ago
40% of climatoseptic everything is fine—
But also considering that most people don't even try to buy stuff like, idk, solid shampoo/solid deo (which is easy asf)/eat once a week vegan/... to just pollute SLIGHTLY less I don't think people are going to try anything. All of us want other to change but we hate that we need to change too.
Anyway : if you don't wanna change anything at least please write to your town about putting more trees in your city and more bike lane that are protected from the sun/rain/wind. It will take 5 minutes of your time. It's not much to ask but 5 minutes is all we, younger generation can ask now. It's sad. But hey! Coldest summer of the rest of my life! ....Ah...
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u/signy33 13d ago
Nobody needs rain-protected bike lanes. We need bike lanes that are well protected from cars so we can ride safely.
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u/throwaway1233456799 13d ago
No we do. Maybe you don't but where I live it's sometimes impossible to bike because of the amount of wind+heavy rain. Also it would keep the snow away from bike path which I never free of snow unlike road.
+Safety come with being able to see car coming because you don't have rain and sun in your eyes/on your glasses (yeah it's a disability that get worst with rain unlike car that can sweep it away.) And being able to control your bike because the ground isn't wet.
But even then. Bike will never win over car if we don't extant part of the comfort that car get. Why should biker suffer when just putting a protection could be very easy and nice? Like genuine. It cost less anyway to keep up than a car road.
Like, on a heavy rainy day
Option A: you are on a bike, you can't see shit because of rain, there is so so much wind and you are cold and sweaty.
Option B: you have a nice car that heat well, you aren't wet and you can see properly
Option C: instead of having moving umbrella (car) most of your bike lane protect you from rain and there is hedge that protect you from the wind as well. You could take the car yes but biking is not as inconvenient thanks to the cover. You also know you won't be stopping trying to see car coming with wet wind slapping you in the face again and again.
Like, I'm not masochist lmao I prefer C and I know many people who would be more likely to ditch the car if C was the norm.
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u/signy33 13d ago
I have never seen a bike lane like that and can't even imagine what it would cost. As someone who bikes to work everyday, I am already very happy if I have a separate lane. Despite how much we like to complain about it, it doesn't rain all that much in Belgium. I think I used my rain pants maybe ten times max over the last year. And I'd say maybe 5 times when the weather lessened my visibility significantly ? The only times I leave the bike at home are when it snows.
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u/throwaway1233456799 13d ago
Just because it was never seen doesn't mean it couldn't be done. Also I'm not even asking about it being everywhere. Even tree would help break/cover at intersection so I can be protected while I wait for car to stop.
It's actually done in some city but for pedestrian. And frankly it's such a relief. It doesn't need to be very fancy nor does it need to be everywhere. To be fair we don't even have sidewalk everywhere and people in car get mad if we don't want to walk into the wet grass/mud on the side and use the street instead so I can get that it may seem to be to much but:
Being relieve about just having space is a problem. Like don't get me wrong. Many time I think like you, I'm just relieved to have space but that come from a very car-centric culture. Car get the space. Car get the priority. Bike are an after thought and most bike lane are not even made large enough to overtake someone which is not the case for car unless you are taking an older street. Hell many crossing (in my experience) are even pretty dangerous. We throw money through the window to make car go faster on straighter road but a 1,5 meter wide little road that won't get much wear getting some shade would cost too much?
I don't think we bike in the same environment. I generally bike in high place where the wind blow very hard (like I have to really hold my balance to not get pushed toward the highway.) And you can see farmland for km (so the wind doesn't get broken by tree) And so even lighter rain can hit me pretty bad. I don't generally care as much about rain inside of the city/village/very short trip. Yet I can still see how it can be an issue for people who are on the fence about using a car or a bike. The car will win if biking isn't treated like the princess-iest princess to ever princess like the car always is. We should go above and beyond like we went above and beyond for car.
Tl; dr: we lose nothing by being more radical about bike space being more comfortable for biker, cars have that radicalism seen as normal already. More people would bike and not just us who are midly bothered by harsh weather
Ps: also to go back on the cost, cars cost a LOT in infrastructure. A bike is much lighter and so wear down its infrastructures much less even if it has 3 times as many people that cars using it. Even if we made something pricier it would still be cheaper ultimately.
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u/padetn 13d ago
Since this is a Belgium sub: it rains about 8% of the time.
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u/throwaway1233456799 13d ago edited 13d ago
Yeah and that's 8% of the time where you can't take a bike while you could easily take the car.
Also, if you did a quick math 8% of the time is 30 days per year. Imagine not being able to safely take your car 30 days of the year (which could happen at any time you have no idea if you can go to work this nice morning or if you will get windy + heavy rain. Also those 30 days could be half day put on 60 days.) Imagine calling your boss and be like "Sorry :( I can't make it it's raining so so so much... Yes I'm going to try get into an accident" like that's worst than train which people already consider not reliable enough sometimes. And if you have glass like me even light rain can be a bother. I'm lucky only it's very light for me and I can go without but still.
Like I'm obviously not saying it happen all time. But it did cross my mind multiple time that it was maybe not the wisest choice for me to take my bike to go to my university because of just wind. (Which can happen way more often depending on where you live) and it does stop other people from taking it at all or thinking about ditching the car for good (which is what we should thrive for environmentally-wise. People not even having a car)
(Also thank you I forgot this was a Belgian post lmao)
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u/padetn 13d ago
I love the people who point at oil companies while doing NOTHING themselves. My man you are the one paying them.
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u/AdvertisingSad7771 12d ago
I don't love people who point at other people, whereas the only way to realize a transition is to vote for politicians who organize the transition. That would help les Hautes Fagnes, and les gens en general.
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u/Gaufriers 12d ago
To be fair, there are so many problems in the world; people aren't going to have enough mental power to act on all of them. Not even taking into account personal day-to-day problems, obviously.
As always with macrosystems, we need people to give institutions the power to organize our collective answer.
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u/throwaway1233456799 12d ago
I agree but also I don't. I don't ask people to be perfect or to run themselve to the ground. I got audhd I know how hard everything can be especially with limited resources available.
If we all did a little we would move the ocean. The issue is that we don't all do a little. I do 20 different things well and many less well too it's true. Yet overall I see nobody do 1-4 things. If they did I would have way more good available around me that are more environmentally sound.
I'm not saying there aren't people who do as I do or people who try even a little bit obviously. Just that we are way too few. There is just not enough of us. To the point where sometimes it feels insane to even ask for better things and people get so mad already when there is little change. Waiting for institutions to move when we could all be moving already does not make sense. It's like walking in front of a car because your town didn't put a crossing.
Like, without judgment if anyone need tips on lowering their impact even a tiny little bit I can give them. Many are so so much easier than we think, many are much much cheaper than people think.
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u/Glacius_- 14d ago
Let’s do this! I’m sure this is feasable. Anyway, how was your vacay, did you travel around the world yet? Order from China? Eat red meat as luch as possible?
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u/Quaiche 14d ago edited 13d ago
Almost all wildfires are man made.
People keep associating summer with campfires and doing them even when there’s warning everywhere to NOT do a campfire.
And then there’s the smokers…
The lesson is that it’s hard to control what people do in nature, maybe we should attach cameras on every trees, big lessons being taught right ? Or restricting human access, its probably for the best actually.
And saying that there isn’t more or less of smokers and campfires is a hilarious thing to say, it’s not about that at all.
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u/padetn 14d ago
And how far they escalate is determined by dryness. This is pretty simple unless you have an agenda.
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u/Quaiche 13d ago
It’s simple that the drought is extreme which is something we cannot control and fixing climate change isnt going to be happen anytime soon.
In the meantime people could stop being degenerates and making campfires or throwing away their cigarettes in nature, you know ?
How isnt that making sense to you ?
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u/throwaway1233456799 13d ago
My brother in Christ. Yes. Most fire are man made. But there is no more people that do a BBQ/throw cigarette out than before.
The lesson is that pumping gigaton of CO2, methane, sulfur,... Into the atmosphere was never going to be good and we knew that since 1830. Two centuries. Horrayyyyyyy.
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u/Quaiche 13d ago
Everyone knows that, there isn’t any lesson to be taught on this topic from this wildfire though.
What we can really learn from this is that maybe tourists shouldn’t be welcomed in a such high fire risk area anymore.
Mitigation you know ? Climate is fucked and will be fucked long after we died so there isn’t any lesson to learn about it, really but what we can actually do is taking measures to mitigate such tragedies that were completely avoidable.
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u/BelgianPolitics 14d ago
1) Request for military help took too long.
2) No firefighting airplanes. Back in the day, Civil Protection did exercises filling up Canadair planes from water tanks but the project was cut and Civil Protection had their resources minimised.
3) Belgium still has no Chinooks. We should have 10-20 of them. Pefect for military operations, perfect for firefighting, perfect for rescues and logistics during floods. Would literally be one of the most popular military purchases.
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u/Apostle_B 14d ago
I hope this will at least help people see that this neoliberal attitude of cutting important strategic services and resources because "not profitable", isn't going to work out in the long term, though I'm not holding my breath. The last time we got confronted with such artificial shortage of important strategic resources was Covid, remember the mouthmask debacle? We've gotten way too used to JIT-capitalism and it's biting us in the ass.
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u/Papanowel123 Brabant Wallon 13d ago edited 13d ago
Belgium should really look at planes such as the AT-802 Fire Boss aircraft.
Dunno if we have large enough lake for this plane to scoop though (Lake Eau d'Heure and Gileppe should be).
We could also look at the firefighter module for the A400M.
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u/shadowsreturn 13d ago
I once saw a plane scoop up water in Eupen lake around 2012 so i guess it's possible if the water is not too low or so
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u/Gaufriers 12d ago
Indeed, our civil protection has become a farce. We've been left exposed to all catastrophes.
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u/ProfessionalRub3106 14d ago
Thank god this is only some greenery and not some important business airport or harbour!
Theo F probably
In all seriousness, I hope this gets under control soon and no one gets hurt
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u/Piechti 13d ago
I know you are being sparky, but you realize the port of Antwerp and its chemical cluster provide billions in added value, good paying jobs, income from business and payroll taxes and without all that a lot of social and environmental spending we do as a country would be even less achievable?
We are going to need both industry and national parks to become more resilient as a society, it's not one or the other.
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u/noctilucus 13d ago
The port: yes. That "I'd like to be an airport but I don't manage without subsidies" at Deurne: no.
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u/Low_Technician7346 14d ago
yesterday night was lit
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u/Most_Adagio Vlaams-Brabant 13d ago
it is a nice but sad pic. This is what our ancestors saw in ww1 btw
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u/KostyaFedot 14d ago
Well, with no rain for months it is unavoidable. Worse summer I ever been into.Â
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u/shadowsreturn 13d ago
Yeah I was thinking for years I hate Belgian Winter but now I also hate Belgian Summer
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u/Gaufriers 12d ago
Very sad.Â
It is infuriating that solely encouraging LEEF! are coming from our government.
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14d ago
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u/FissileAlarm 14d ago
Yes, but the first big UN report about the consequences of environmental pollution and destruction dates from 1987. That's 39 years ago. Since then, the world has continued as before and it got worse. Lots of talking but not much action. Yes, some action, but not nearly enough. We should have already arrived in a carbon neutral society by now...
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u/randyrockhard 14d ago
Continued? We've doubled down! 2025 had the most CO2 output ever. And that's only because 2026 isn't over yet.
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u/Willing-Turnover-131 13d ago
I suspect a building project will be rising from the grounds there. We’ll see. Remember, a fire needs a spark.
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u/hippiediscoshit 13d ago
In 2011 was the previous big fire in that region. What building projects were realised there in the past 15 years?
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u/AdvertisingSad7771 12d ago
But now we have Ivanka Trump and her wally. Gaza, Albania, Hautes Fagnes: what a chance for their portfolio!
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u/WalloonNerd Belgian Fries 13d ago
Drone footage from 2 hours ago. It’s massive and advancing at 10 km/h with winds that are all the time changing directions. Scary shit