District Administrator Thomas Balcerowski (CDU) declared a disaster on Sunday morning because of the fire that was spreading rapidly below the Brocken summit in the Harz Mountains. Wernigerode's city spokeswoman Ariane Hofmann announced that the Harz district is assuming that extinguishing work will last several days.

The fire that broke out on Saturday was initially not under control on Sunday and raged over an area of ​​around 62 hectares. Above all, dead spruce stands burned.

According to the information, five fire-fighting helicopters and more than 300 emergency services are fighting the fire, and a good 50 police forces are securing the area around the Brocken, which is closed to visitors. Two firefighting planes from other European countries should arrive and provide support at noon, it said. A no-fly zone for civil air traffic has been set up within a radius of 40 kilometers on the Brocken. The town of Schierke, which belongs to Wernigerode, is not at risk, it said.

The Harz narrow-gauge railways do not go up the 1141-meter-high mountain on Sunday. As the railway company announced on its website, there is limited train service between Wernigerode and Drei Annen Hohne.

The fire was discovered on Saturday around 2:30 p.m. on the so-called Goetheweg near the Goethebahnhof vantage point. The Goetheweg to the Brocken is one of the most frequented hiking trails in the Harz National Park.