Between 2009 and 2011, hundreds of hectares of dune areas near Schoorl were destroyed, with authorities suspecting the activities of pyromaniacs. Extensive fields of rare heathlands, aged fifty to sixty years, were burned, along with a thick layer of humus. The fires also had a partly beneficial effect by burning many pine trees that were nominated for felling, allowing the former forest to be transformed into an open dune. This transformation will enable the dunes behind it to benefit from the wind, salt, and sand from the sea.