A forest fire that broke out on a former military training ground in the German state of Brandenburg on Wednesday was on Saturday still defying efforts of firefighters to contain it.
Rising winds had exacerbated the situation in the woods by Jüterbog, 60 kilometres south-west of the capital Berlin, officials said.
"The fire is just increasing in size," the fire brigade's head of operations Rico Walentin told dpa.
Some 45 hectares were burning. The fire is spreading, a spokeswoman for the city of Jüterbog confirmed later on Saturday.
While the fire brigade is trying to combat the fire on the ground, the ammunition load in the area is hampering their efforts.
"It won't be done tomorrow," said Raimund Engel, the state's forest fire protection officer. He said that fire fighters were also having to respond to forest fires in other regions, including near Bad Liebenwerda in southern Brandenburg.
Near Jüterbog, large clouds of smoke could be seen from afar on Saturday.
The operation to extingish the blaze was also complicated by the munitions-infested terrain. Fire crews could not reach the location because of the danger of old ammunition exploding.
Two fire-fighting planes that repeatedly dropped water on the burning area on Friday were no longer in action as their effect was insufficient, according to Walentin. He said more planes would have been needed.
Ten fire engines were instead deployed to pump water from the roadside.
"We have to see if the wind plays in our favour," the fire chief said, hoping for calm and above all rain. However, no precipitation was forecast over the weekend and the temperature was set to rise on Sunday.
The fire brigade is trying to stop the fire at firebreaks, 30-metre aisles in the forest, said the head of the city's public order office, Christiane Lindner-Klopsch. They were also using drones to assess the extent of the fire and a quad bike to help with reconnaissance.
Walentin said the firefighters were also considering using fire-fighting and recovery tanks from a private provider but it was not clear how much this would help.
"There are munitions all over the site and we don't know where," he said. A lot of dead wood was a further problem, saying it was not easy to procedure through the forest given that the ground was "like a big game of mikado."
The affected forest fire area belongs to a large area owned by the Brandenburg Natural Landscapes Foundation, which protects the former military training areas for nature conservation.
