Hautes Fagnes Fire Batters Belgian Tourism Sector

One month after the largest wildfire in Belgian history tore through the Hautes Fagnes nature reserve, the blaze is controlled but not yet extinguished — and the economic damage to the region’s tourism and hospitality trade is mounting fast. Hotels, restaurants and cafes are reporting precipitous drops in business as fear keeps visitors away from one of the country’s most beloved nature destinations.

The fire has burned roughly 3,300 hectares of moorland and peat bog since it broke out on 14 August 2026 in the Fagne des Deux-Séries, near the commune of Baelen. Emergency services have largely contained the flames, but localized peat re-ignitions remain possible, and a full extinguishing has not yet been declared.

A Sector in Deep Distress

The human cost of the disaster is now being measured in lost bookings. At the Hôtel des Bains et Wellness on the shore of Lac de Robertville, owner Jean-Pierre Robert told RTBF that turnover has fallen by 73% compared with the same period last year.

“The Horeca sector is suffering enormously — whether it is me or my colleagues in Butgenbach, Malmedy… the whole region is suffering enormously because of the absence of tourists, who are currently afraid,” Robert said. “If things don’t pick up, we risk an economic collapse across all occupancy, footfall, restaurants… The situation is truly, truly very worrying.”

The pain is widely shared. According to L’Avenir, some hospitality operators in the region lost up to 70% of their revenue in the month following the outbreak of the fire.

Speaking in the Walloon Parliament’s Tourism and Heritage Commission on Monday 14 September, Walloon Tourism Minister Valérie Lescrenier (Les Engagés) said 3,420 overnight stays had already been cancelled because of the fire, a figure she cautioned should still be treated with prudence. A Walloon administration survey cited by the minister found that 34 accommodation establishments in Liège province had to be evacuated.

A Region Open, If Only Tourists Would Come

Local operators are now pleading with the public to return, arguing that media coverage has remained alarmist even though the fire is localized and much of the area is perfectly safe.

“Since the fires, there have been many cancellations of room reservations. Which I can understand, because there was concern among customers,” Robert told L’Avenir. “But now, the situation on this side of the Fagne is completely calm, the air is pure and we see blue sky. Unfortunately, we see that the news in the media is still alarmist about the fires, even though they are now localized only in certain spots.”

Hiking trails and activities have been gradually reopening, and the regional tourism body Visit Wallonia has published an updated map of accessible routes as well as a dedicated page, “Les Hautes Fagnes autrement,” to help visitors plan trips around the restricted zones. The burned area itself remains off-limits to the public.

Scale of the Disaster

The fire is by far the largest Belgium has ever faced, dwarfing a previous blaze in the same reserve in 2011. Estimates of the burned area range from roughly 3,000 to 3,400 hectares, with L’Avenir and RTBF settling on 3,300 hectares.

Its environmental toll extends well beyond the acreage. Smoke drifted over Namur, Luxembourg province and northern France, with fine-particle concentrations reaching around 800 µg/m³ southwest of the plateau. Hundreds of thousands of litres of water were pumped from Lac de la Gileppe to fight the flames. The fire reached the peat itself, and it remains unknown whether the reserve’s fragile raised bogs can be restored.

The endangered Black Grouse, a symbol of the Hautes Fagnes, is a particular concern: of 13 GPS-tagged individuals, only seven could be located, though one male was rescued alive. The blaze chiefly struck Natura 2000 moorland and heath, with peripheral damage to conifer forests.

The cause remains under judicial investigation for involuntary fire. RTBF reporting suggests the blaze may have been started by agricultural machinery mowing a plot near the Croix Mockel, but that hypothesis has not been confirmed.

What’s Next

The immediate question facing local authorities is how to revive a tourism economy that depends on a short season before the damage becomes permanent. Robert’s warning is blunt: jobs and local producers are on the line, and any recovery must come before the sector “collapses.”

For now, the fire’s flames have receded, but the fear it ignited — and the economic chill it left behind — could prove harder to extinguish. What to watch in the coming weeks: whether visitor numbers recover as the region’s trails reopen, and how the judicial investigation into the fire’s origin unfolds.