SHARE
COPY LINK

FESTIVAL

Danish festival to allow smoking despite dry conditions

The Smukfest festival, which is located in a beech forest near Danish town Skanderborg, is to allow smoking when it takes place in August.

Danish festival to allow smoking despite dry conditions
Guests at Smukfest in 2017. Photo: Sarah Christine Nørgaard/Ritzau Scanpix

The event will thereby not be following the example of the Swedish festival Visfestival Holmöns, which banned smoking due to dry conditions.

Sweden is one of a number of European countries to have seen devastating wildfires this summer following droughts across the continent.

But Smukfest is to instead focus on preventative measures against fires, head of safety Thomas Rydahl said.

“We are extremely focused on the drought but we have chosen a different option to a (smoking) ban,” Ryhdahl said.

The Skanderborg festival takes place from August 8th-12th.

“We have a lot of preventative measures with a very high number of ashtrays and we will be communicating with our guests,” Rydahl said.

The ashtrays will consist of buckets of sand and water to immediately extinguish cigarette butts while staff will be instructed as to the heightened importance of fire safety, Ritzau reports.

“Last year mud was the problem, now it’s the drought,” Rydahl said.

Swedish broadcaster SVT has reported that the Visfestival Holmöns will ban smoking entirely on its festival site.

Extra fire extinguishment equipment and volunteer firefighters will also be present.

Although there will be no smoking ban at Smukfest, a number of other rules will be introduced due to to the dry conditions, Rydahl said.

Bonfire and barbecue areas usually provided by the festival will not be available this year, he said.

The head of security also said that enforcing a no-smoking rule would not be easy under the circumstances.

“We are inclined to believe that we, through the friendly atmosphere, can alert our guests to the seriousness of the situation,” he said.

This year’s Smukfest is the 39th edition of the festival at the Bøgeskoven forest near Skanderborg. Britney Spears is the headline act at this year’s event.

READ ALSO: Subterranean wildfire rages in Denmark

WILDFIRES

France gets help from EU neighbours as wildfires rage

Firefighting teams and equipment from six EU nations started to arrive in France on Thursday to help battle a spate of wildfires, including a fierce blaze in the parched southwest that has forced thousands to evacuate.

France gets help from EU neighbours as wildfires rage

Most of the country is sweltering under a summer heatwave compounded by a record drought – conditions most experts say will occur more often as a result of rapid climate change.

“We must continue, more than ever, our fight against climate disruption and … adapt to this climate disruption,” Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said after arriving at a fire command post in the village of Hostens, south of Bordeaux.

The European Commission said four firefighting planes would be sent to France from Greece and Sweden, as well as teams from Austria, Germany, Poland and Romania.

“Our partners are coming to France’s aid against the fires. Thank you to them. European solidarity is at work!” President Emmanuel Macron tweeted.

“Across the country over 10,000 firefighters and security forces are mobilised against the flames… These soldiers of fire are our heroes,” he said.

In total, 361 foreign firefighters were  dispatched to assist their 1,100 French colleagues deployed in the worst-hit part of the French southwest.

A first contingent of 65 German firefighters, followed by their 24 vehicles, arrived Thursday afternoon and were to go into action at dawn Friday, officials said.

Among eight major fires currently raging, the biggest is the Landiras fire in the southwest Gironde department, whose forests and beaches draw huge tourist crowds each summer.

It had already burned 14,000 hectares (35,000 acres) in July – the driest month seen in France since 1961 – before being contained, but it continued to smoulder in the region’s tinder-dry pine forests and peat-rich soil.

Since flaring up again Tuesday, which officials suspect may have been caused by arson, it has burned 7,400 hectares, destroyed or damaged 17 homes, and forced 10,000 people to quit their homes, said Lieutenant Colonel Arnaud Mendousse of the Gironde fire and rescue service.

Borne said nine firefighting planes are already dumping water on the blaze, with two more to be in service by the weekend.

“Gigantic”
“We battled all night to stop the fire from spreading, notably to defend the village of Belin-Beliet,” Mendousse told journalists in Hostens.

On several houses nearby, people hung out white sheets saying: “Thank you for saving our homes” and other messages of support for the weary fire battalions.

“You’d think we’re in California, it’s gigantic… And they’re used to forest fires here but we’re being overwhelmed on all sides — nobody could have expected this,” Remy Lahlay, a firefighter deployed near Hostens in the Landes de Gascogne natural park, told AFP.

With temperatures in the region hitting nearly 40C on Thursday and forecast to stay high until at least Sunday, “there is a very serious risk of new outbreaks” for the Landiras fire, the prefecture of the Gironde department said.

Acrid smoke has spread across much of the southwestern Atlantic coast and its beaches that draw huge crowds of tourists each summer, with the regional ARS health agency “strongly” urging people to wear protective face masks.

The smoke also forced the closing of the A63 motorway, a major artery toward Spain, between Bordeaux and Bayonne.

The government has urged employers to allow leaves of absence for volunteer firefighters to help fight the fires.

Meanwhile, in Portugal, more than 1,500 firefighters were also battling a fire that has raged for days in the mountainous Serra da Estrela natural park in the centre of the country.

It has already burned 10,000 hectares, according to the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS).

SHOW COMMENTS