The Associated Press
GENEVA — Unseasonably dry weather throughout April has been causing forest fires across Switzerland, prompting authorities to issue warnings and even forbid outdoor smoking in certain areas.
At least half of Switzerland’s 26 cantons (states) have issued partial or total bans on open fires outdoors because of the heightened threat, Larissa Peter of the Ministry for Environment said Wednesday.
“We are recommending that people be extremely careful,” she told The Associated Press. “I can’t remember ever having had such a situation this early in the year.”
Forest fires in Switzerland normally occur in July and August, as well as along the southern flanks of the Alps during the dry winter months. But fire warnings in April are almost unheard of.
According to local authorities, one blaze in the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino has been burning for three days and destroyed more than 200 hectares (500 acres) of woodland.
“In the last three weeks there hasn’t been a drop of rain in most parts of Switzerland,” Thomas Schlegel of the national weather service told the AP.
He said preliminary figures indicated this April would also be the hottest in Switzerland since records began in 1864.
With the summer weather predicted to continue for at least another week, Rudolf Guenther of the environment department in the central Swiss canton of Nidwalden said the situation was getting serious.
“The farmers have told us that they’ve never seen anything like it. They’re pleased about all they hay they’re making, but now we really need some rain,” he said.