In France, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands, fire crews battling blazes fuelled by drought and record heat have had to work alongside bomb disposal teams, as heat and flame reach munitions that have sat quietly underground since the two world wars. Jonas Tepe, a regional government spokesperson in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, has noted that unexploded ordnance becomes more dangerous specifically around wildfires because heat alone can be enough to set explosives off, without direct contact with the flames. In the French village of Le Porge, near Bordeaux, a wildfire uncovered roughly 400 shells and pieces of ammunition, mostly German and French mortar rounds and anti-tank shells, according to French officials. One resident told regional media that a piece of the recovered ordnance had gone straight through a house.
