Wildfires across Europe have exposed unexploded ordnance from past wars, officials say

Wildfires burning across parts of Europe this summer have exposed unexploded munitions left over from earlier wars, creating new hazards for firefighters and residents in areas where vegetation and soil have been burned away, CBS News reported on Aug. 22, 2026.

CBS News said the renewed risk has included World War I and World War II-era ordnance that was buried or otherwise hidden beneath landscapes later charred by fire. In several places, the discovery of explosives has prompted evacuations, cordons, and the dispatch of specialized units to handle potentially unstable devices.

The problem is not limited to the immediate fire lines, CBS News reported. Where the blazes have altered ground cover and visibility, previously covered ordnance can become easier to spot, and heat or shifting conditions can increase uncertainty about whether a device remains safe to move. Emergency services have treated the findings as an additional incident type layered onto ongoing wildfire response operations.

Authorities have used standard public-safety procedures in response to these discoveries, CBS News said. Those steps typically include restricting access to affected areas, coordinating with bomb-disposal personnel, and ensuring that firefighting operations can continue only once a site is cleared or appropriately controlled for safety.

The report also highlighted how the wildfire season can intensify the challenge for disaster responders, because large-scale operations require sustained manpower and logistics while dealing with unpredictable secondary threats. When unexploded ordnance is encountered, fire crews may need to pause or reroute to keep civilians and responders out of danger zones.

While the exact number of incidents and the specific countries affected were not detailed in the CBS News preview that triggered this coverage request, CBS News’s reporting indicates that the pattern is recurring enough to be part of the operational planning for at least some regional emergency services during periods of extreme fire conditions. The underlying issue ties the current wildfire crisis to the long tail of wartime contamination that still complicates land management and emergency work decades later.

Emergency officials generally stress that the devices should not be handled by untrained personnel and that residents should report suspicious objects to authorities rather than attempting to approach or move them. As the summer fires continue, CBS News said, responders are balancing wildfire containment and public safety while also managing a renewed risk of unexploded ordnance surfacing in burned areas.