2026年8月22日 美国东部时间上午8:35 / 哥伦比亚广播公司/美联社
今年夏季席卷欧洲的野火，在被烧焦的地表之下暴露了一个潜在的致命威胁：第一次和第二次世界大战遗留的锈蚀炸弹与地雷，正威胁着赶赴火场的救援人员。
其中一些武器已在高温下爆炸。法国、比利时、德国和荷兰均报告了爆炸事件，荷兰的一支排爆小队已被派往林堡省一处曾在1944年发生过激烈战斗的地点附近，对一处受野火威胁的森林进行排查。
稳定的气温和可预测的降雨曾确保大多数埋藏的武器处于休眠状态。但今年的野火季因1月的强降雨而加剧，催生了植被生长，而夏季高温来临时，这些植被便成了易燃物。世界天气归因组织上月发布的一项研究显示，高温加上干旱、低湿度和强风，为火灾的发生提供了理想条件。此次火灾已导致大规模疏散。
伦敦大学亚非学院和平与冲突学者萨拉·恩杰里表示，当前局势表明欧洲的“气候好运”正在耗尽。
“气候变化正在揭开此前一直稳定存在的隐患，将它们暴露并重新激活，”恩杰里说道。
2026年8月17日，比利时瓦耶讷附近一片被野火烧焦的田野升起浓烟。马里尤斯·比尔热尔曼/美联社
“你无法确定爆炸物的位置”
在比利时东部列日省，省长埃尔韦·雅马尔表示，近期传出“零星几起爆炸”，应急部门正在调整应对方案，以应对火灾区域内埋藏的弹药。他称没有消防队员陷入危险，但当地媒体发布了一名消防员搬运锈蚀炸弹的照片。
第二次世界大战期间，该省名为“高沼”的茂密泥炭沼泽森林遍布诡雷、炸弹和地雷，这片森林横跨比利时与德国边境，曾是包括血腥的突出部之役在内的多场关键战役的发生地。目前该区域正有一场大火闷燃。
获得授权使用金属探测器扫描 former 战场的当地历史学家贝尔纳·科拉尔表示，在这样的环境中，“你无法确定爆炸物的位置”。他称自己曾发现过迫击炮弹、机枪、头盔、烟盒，甚至还有一具人类骸骨。他的父亲曾在一处采石场引爆过一枚发现的炸弹。
“你永远不知道会遇到什么，绝不能掉以轻心，”科拉尔站在一片曾沾满鲜血的土地上说道。附近的蓝莓灌木丛覆盖着昔日的散兵坑、战壕和 artillery 炮击留下的深坑。
他经常与比利时排雷小队合作。“这是我们历史的一部分，我们与它共存，”科拉尔说道。
2026年8月21日，贝尔纳·科拉尔在比利时克林克特埃尔森伯恩地区的田野中使用金属探测器。瓦朗坦·比安基/美联社
“战争的声响”
在法国一片极度干燥的森林中，波尔多市西南部郊外的一场大规模野火暴露了一批据信为二战时期的弹药。8月初，勒波尔热村共回收了约400枚炮弹和弹药残骸。这些弹药分属德国和法国，主要为迫击炮弹，还有一些高爆反坦克炮弹。
消防队长托马斯·米米亚克表示，火灾期间听到的爆炸声可能是炮弹爆炸引发的。市长马蒂亚尔·扎内蒂告诉法国新闻媒体法国资讯台，这些爆炸声与“战争的声响”如出一辙。
“我们市镇境内的土地下埋藏着弹药库，但我们此前并不知情，它们就这样爆炸了，”扎内蒂对法国资讯台说道，并补充称其中一枚弹药“击穿了一栋房屋”。
当地当局表示，这场大火摧毁了超过180栋房屋。居民们已于8月初在火势被扑灭后返村。
“重温战争遗留的创伤”
在欧洲发现未爆炸弹药并非罕见之事。去年12月，塞尔维亚贝尔格莱德一处建筑工地移除了一枚二战时期盟军使用的1000磅航空炸弹。2025年9月，研究人员发现，沉在德国海湾底部的未爆炸纳粹炸弹已成了海洋生物的栖息地。
有时这些发现会像野火一样引发大规模疏散。2025年8月，德国南部城市德累斯顿发现一枚未爆炸炸弹，导致数千人被迫撤离家园。2025年3月，法国繁忙的北站附近发现一枚未爆炸炸弹，车站交通被迫暂停。
比利时爆炸物处理与销毁部门每年平均接到超过3000起求助电话，并销毁200至250吨两次世界大战遗留的弹药。在因一战惨烈堑壕战而闻名的伊普尔镇，一些农民将每年的耕地称为“铁的收获”，因为翻土时总能挖出大量战争残留物。
比利时波凯尔佩尔爆炸物处理设施仓库中堆放的一战炮弹，其中包括疑似毒气弹。希特·范登温加尔特/美联社
通常情况下，炸弹会被小心处理，要么被拆除引信，要么被精准引爆。但野火的高温可能会触发炸药，让救援人员失去对局势的控制。
野火也并非唯一暴露旧武器的气象现象。干旱导致欧洲河流、湖泊水位下降，让原本被淹没的弹药重见天日。
在斯洛伐克，多瑙河水位下降后露出了两枚海军地雷，警方将其从水中捞出并埋入壕沟准备受控引爆。匈牙利当局在多瑙河河畔发现一枚二战时期的炸弹后，关闭了布达佩斯的玛格丽特桥。随着莱茵河水位下降，德国当局也发现了一枚二战时期的炸弹。
亚利桑那大学研究员克里斯蒂娜·格林与恩杰里共同撰写了一篇关于欧洲野火与未爆炸弹药风险的文章，她表示，由于气候变化，“战争遗留的隐患不断浮现”。
“这正以某些地区许久未曾经历过的方式，让我们重温战争与冲突遗留的创伤，”格林说道。
European wildfires expose, detonate buried bombs and mines from past wars
August 22, 2026 8:35 AM EDT / CBS/AP
The wildfires burning across Europe this summer have exposed a potentially deadly threat lurking beneath the blackened landscape: rusty bombs and mines from World War I and II that threaten crews responding to the flames.
Some of the weapons have exploded in the intense heat. Blasts have been reported in France, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands, where a bomb-disposal team was dispatched to check a forest threatened by flames near a site of fierce fighting in the Limburg province in 1944.
Steady temperatures and predictable rainfall once ensured that most buried weapons stayed dormant. But this wildfire season was supercharged by heavy rains in January that spurred vegetation growth, which became kindling when the summer heat arrived. Those temperatures, combined with drought conditions, low humidity and stiff winds, offered an ideal environment for fire, according to a study issued last month by the World Weather Attribution group. The blazes have led to mass evacuations.
The current situation shows that Europe’s “climatic luck” is running out, said Sarah Njeri, a peace and conflict scholar at London’s School of Oriental and African Studies.
“Climate change is now doing the work of unburying and reactivating what was previously stable,” Njeri said.
Smoke rises from a field scorched by a wildfire near Waimes, Belgium, Aug. 17, 2026. Marius Burgelman/AP
“You are not sure where the explosives are”
In the eastern Belgian province of Liege, Gov. Hervé Jamar said “a few sporadic detonations” were recently heard and that emergency services were adapting to account for munitions buried in a fire area. He said no fire crews were in danger, but local media published photos of a firefighter handling a rusted bomb.
During World War II, booby traps, bombs and mines were scattered throughout the province’s dense peat-bog forest known as the High Fens, which stretches across Belgium’s border with Germany and was the site of key conflicts, including the bloody Battle of the Bulge. Now, a huge blaze is smoldering in the area.
Bernard Collard, a local historian who is authorized to scan the former battlefields with a metal detector, said that in an environment like this, “you are not sure where the explosives are.” He said he has found mortar shells, machine guns, helmets, cigarette cases, and once, a human skeleton. His father once detonated a found bomb in a quarry.
“You never know what you might come across, and you shouldn’t take it lightly,” Collard said while standing in a field that was once a blood-soaked site. Nearby, blueberry bushes cover old foxholes, trenches and deep craters from artillery fire.
He frequently works with the Belgian demining squad. “It’s part of our history. We live with it,” Collard said.
Bernard Collard runs a metal detector over a field in the Elsenborn area of Krinkelt, Belgium, Aug. 21, 2026. Valentin Bianchi/AP
“The sound of war”
In a forest in tinder-dry France, a massive wildfire outside the southwestern city of Bordeaux uncovered a cache of what is believed to be World War II-era ammunition. Around 400 shells and pieces of ammunition were recovered in the village of Le Porge earlier in August. The munitions, both German and French, consist mainly of mortar shells, along with some high-explosive anti-tank shells.
Fire commander Thomas Mimiague said blasts heard during the blaze may have been shells exploding. Mayor Martial Zaninetti told French news outlet France Info the blasts were similar to “the sound of war.”
“There were ammunition depots buried in land within our municipality, but we didn’t know it, and they exploded,” Zaninetti told France Info, adding that one of the munitions “went through a house.”
Over 180 homes were destroyed by the fire, local authorities said. Residents returned to the village earlier in August, after the flames were extinguished.
“Reliving the legacies of war”
Finding unexploded ordnance in Europe isn’t unusual. A 1,000-pound aerial bomb used by Allied forces during World War II was removed from a construction site in Belgrade, Serbia, in December. In September 2025, researchers found unexploded Nazi bombs sitting at the bottom of a German bay had become a home for marine life.
Sometimes the discoveries, like the fires, spark mass evacuations. Thousands had to leave their homes in Dresden, Germany, after an unexploded bomb was found in the southern city in August 2025. Traffic at France’s bustling Gare du Nord train station had to be halted in March 2025 after an unexploded bomb was found near tracks.
Every year across the nation, Belgium’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal and Destruction Service responds to more than 3,000 calls and disposes of 200 to 250 tons of munitions left over from both world wars. In Ypres, a town infamous for harrowing trench warfare in World War I, some farmers call the annual tilling of the soil “the iron harvest” because it turns up so many war remnants.
World War I shells, including suspect gas shells, piled in a warehouse at the explosive disposal facility in Poelkapelle, Belgium. Geert Vanden Wijngaert/AP
Typically, the bombs are carefully handled and either defused or intentionally, precisely detonated. But wildfire heat can trigger the explosives, removing control from the equation.
Wildfire also isn’t the only weather phenomenon revealing old weaponry. Drought has shrunk Europe’s rivers and lakes to reveal munitions that were once invisible.
In Slovakia, the Danube River fell and exposed two naval mines that police pulled out of the water and buried in a trench for a controlled demolition. Authorities in Hungary closed Budapest’s Margaret Bridge after a bomb dating from World War II emerged at its base in receding water. As the Rhine dried up, German authorities also found a WWII-era bomb.
Christina Greene, a researcher at the University of Arizona who, with Njeri, wrote an article on Europe’s wildfires and unexploded ordnance risk, said “the legacy of war keeps creeping up” because of climate change.
“It’s reliving the legacies of war and conflict in a way that we haven’t had to deal with in a while in certain places,” Greene said.