Federal Chancellor Friedrich Merz of the CDU apparently intended to visit the area affected by the forest fire in Hürtgenwald as early as a week prior. A visit that was requested over the previous weekend had to be postponed because the firefighting efforts would have been interrupted, according to District Administrator Ralf Nolten (CDU) and Merz at the cancelled visit yesterday.
Merz confirmed the scheduling issue, stating, “We did indeed speak multiple times the weekend before last, and I offered to come here, but they told me to wait until later. I then said, ‘I am happy to come as soon as possible to see what happened here and to look at what we can jointly learn from this.'”
The Chancellor also thanked the emergency services for their efforts. He remarked that “without the cooperation of all these participants, it would not have ended so fortunately.” Nevertheless, Merz believes that centralizing fire fighting operations would not be helpful. He stressed instead the importance of coordinated efforts among local volunteer teams.
Merz announced that the incidents will be evaluated, and the Federal Cabinet will discuss ways to improve communication links. Addressing the increasing frequency of forest fires due to climate change, he commented, “We will do everything we can to counteract climate change. But we must also live with climate change. And being prepared for it is a task shared by the federal government, the states, and the municipalities.”
