Some residents in the Eifel town of Monschau were evacuated as a massive fire in Belgium threatened to cross the border. Meanwhile, shipping shortfalls amid low river water levels could hit the construction industry.
A massive wildfire in Belgium has stopped its advance to the German border, firefighters say
Reduced cargo shipping on rivers amid low water levels could impact construction supplies, associations say
New statistics show one in 10 young people are not in work or training
Here is a roundup of top headlines from and about Germany on August 17, 2026:
The head of the German Forestry Council has said Germany should urgently convert its conifer forests into mixed forests in the face of the growing wildfire threat as climate change advances.
Christian Haase told the public broadcaster Deutschlandfunk that the increased fire danger "means for us as forest owners: forest conversion, forest conversion, forest conversion."
"We must move away from pure conifer stands towards mixed forests," he said.
However, he conceded that the shift would take some time.
"This will certainly take another decade," he said.
Studies suggest that monocultural forests are more frequently affected and more severely affected by fires.
Pine forests in particular are considered highly flammable as their trees are rich in resins and oils.
Germany has seen several recent wildfires, including one in Hürtgen Forest that was the worst in the recorded history of the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia.
In 2025, people in Germany cut the number of trips they took abroad, while the number of trips taken within the country with at least one overnight stay rose, figures from the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) showed on Monday.
The number of trips within Germany climbed by 3.9% in comparison with 2024 to 169 million, Destatis said.
Foreign travel went down by around 8.3% in comparison with the year before, to 105 million.
The most popular destination was Italy, followed by Austria, Spain, France and the Netherlands.
For all trips, the most popular means of transport was the car (60.2%), with rail (19.2%) and plane (15.2%) lagging well behind.
The number of 20 to 24-year-olds in Germany who were neither employed nor doing training or studies rose to 10% in 2025 as part of a continuing trend, new figures have shown.
In 2022, the figure was 8.8%, the Federal Statistical Office said, using international comparative data from the European statistics authority Eurostat.
However, the figure from Germany is relatively low among all 27 EU nations and below the average of 12.9% for the bloc.
The Netherlands had the lowest percentage of people in the 20-24 age group who were unemployed or not doing some professional training, at 5.6%.
The figure was highest in Romania (22.8%), Bulgaria (17.3%) and France (16.2%).
Young people in rural areas of Germany were less likely than those in big cities to fall into the category (7.9% and 10.6% respectively).
The building sector could face supply shortfalls as ships on German rivers carry less cargo because of falling water levels, construction industry associations say.
"Transport by water is becoming increasingly difficult," Thomas Reimann, the president of an association representing construction contractors in the German state of Hesse, told the DPA news agency.
He said that sand and gravel, which are often shipped in large quantities to concrete plants, are becoming harder to come by and more expensive.
The German Construction Industry Federation (HDB) also said suppliers had already warned that continued low water levels could lead to shortages in some building supplies.
Bitumen, aggregate, natural stone, fuels and mineral construction waste are among the other materials affected by the reduced shipping capacity.
HDB chief executive Tim-Oliver Müller said it was unlikely that construction would be brought to a widespread halt but that the risk of shortages, higher logistics costs and delays was growing as low water levels persist.
Several homes in the Eifel town of Monschau were evacuated overnight as a wildfire burning in Belgium's High Fens nature reserve threatened to cross the border.
Around 30 residents from 17 homes were evacuated, with emergency accommodation set up at a nearby school.
However, by Monday morning the fire was said to have stopped its advance toward Germany amid weather conditions that are more favorable to firefighting efforts.
The fire had previously moved to within about 300 meters (984 feet) of the German border.
A spokesman for the local fire brigade said meadows between the fire and homes had been soaked with water for hours to help stop the spread of the flames.
