Around 4,000 people who live in the small town of Herkenbosch in the south of the Netherlands were forced to leave their homes early on Wednesday due to a large fire in a nearby nature reserve.

Mayor Monique de Boer said in a statement she had decided to evacuate all residents to prevent them from inhaling toxic fumes in the smoke created by the fire.

The evacuation started just before midnight on Tuesday, and the whole town had been sealed off around 6 am (0400 GMT), local TV station L1 said.

No injuries were reported.

The fire in the De Meinweg nature reserve, on the Dutch-German border around 200 km (125 miles) southeast of Amsterdam and 50 km west of Dusseldorf, has been raging since Monday.