After the forest fire broke out in the Lieberoser Heide in the southeast of Brandenburg, the fire brigade is preparing for a longer-lasting mission.

Operations manager Christian Liebe said on Tuesday that, in his estimation, the firefighting would last at least until Wednesday.

Rain is only announced for Thursday.

Since the area is polluted with ammunition, the fire brigade cannot enter the area, but can only extinguish it from the edges.

The fire broke out in the Lieberoser Heide on Monday.

According to information from Tuesday morning, the fire covered about 13 hectares.

Even from the air, extinguishing is still carried out with the help of a helicopter.

Brandenburg's Minister of Forestry and Climate Protection, Axel Vogel (Greens), called for the forest to be converted more quickly with significantly more deciduous trees.

Second highest warning level

"The emergency services have the situation on site under control," said a spokeswoman for the Dahme-Spreewald district on Tuesday.

There is no danger for the population either.

District Administrator Stephan Loge, who got an idea of ​​the situation himself, said: "Experience over the past few years shows us that the fire is insidious due to the unpredictability and the high level of drought." In the summer of 2019, the fire brigade had to fight a forest fire in the Lieberoser Heide - around 30 kilometers north of Cottbus - fought.

Forest fire warning level 4 is currently in effect in the Dahme-Spreewald district - the second highest.

Brandenburg's Agriculture Minister Vogel emphasized the importance of forest conversion on Tuesday's RBB Inforadio.

There are still 80 percent pine forests.

"Bringing in deciduous trees is the order of the day." A total of 600,000 hectares of coniferous forest would have to be converted, but currently it is less than 5,000 hectares per year.

That's not enough.

The conversion must be done within a generation because of climate change, said Vogel. "Otherwise we may soon have no more forests in Brandenburg." In total, Brandenburg has more than one million hectares of forest areas.