As it burned through fields near the village of Le Porge, the fire exposed a forgotten cache of second world war-era shells. While buried munitions are always dangerous, they are usually undisturbed enough not to go off. Flames burrowing into deep peat set off more than 20 buried second world war shells over six weeks of burning. As temperature rise and rainfall patterns shift, the probability of extreme wildfires will continue to rise. Rural abandonment in some parts of the continent has allowed vegetation to accumulate, creating the fuel loads that feed extreme wildfires.