The Grotius building of the Radboud University in Nijmegen was evacuated after a fire broke out around 8:15 a.m. on Tuesday. The fire is now extinguished, but firefighters are still working on ventilating the building on Montessorilaan, De Gelderlander reports.

Due to a large amount of smoke, firefighters had difficulty locating the spot where the fire was raging. They found it around 9:05 a.m. and by 9:45 a.m. the fire was under control.

Despite improvements over the past years, the air in Gelderland is still anything but clean, according to a report from public health service GGD Gelderland-Midden. The researchers concluded that two babies per year die due to air pollution in the province and breathing the Gelderland air is, on average, equal to smoking six cigarettes per day, Omroep Gelderland reports.

A fire in a building on Bloemerstraat in Nijmegen on Sunday afternoon, left at least 13 student homes uninhabitable, according to the Gelderlander. No one was hurt in the fire. 

The fire started in the ceiling of a home on the ground floor around 1:45 p.m. Firefighters had trouble extinguishing it, because the fire was largely between the floors and in the walls. Eventually some walls had to be knocked down so that firefighters could get to the flames, according to the newspaper. The fire was finally under control around 4:00 p.m.

A 4-year-old boy was left home alone, crying on a balcony in Nijmegen for hours last week. A police officer rescued the boy by climbing onto the balcony from a neighbor's apartment. The officer found him "with tears on his face and large eyes", the Nijmegen police wrote on Facebook.

Nijmegen's annual four day hiking event, the Vierdaagse, kicked off on Tuesday morning. The first hikers started their journey at 4:00 a.m. and by 6:30 a.m. over half of the 42,036 participants were on the way, the Volkskrant reports.

This is the 101st edition of the Nijmegen Vierdaagse, which ends in the Nijmegen city center on Friday. Hikers from no less than 67 countries are participating this year. The youngest participant is 11-year-old Maud Molemans from Nijmegen, the oldest is 94-year-old Herman Dubie from Amsterdam. This is the Amsterdam man's 20th Vierdaagse. 

Former skater Christijn Groeneveld lost his wheelchair at the Guns 'N Roses concert in Goffertpark in Nijmegen on Wednesday. Friend and fellow skater Markt Tuitert took to Twitter to help him find it.

"Will those who took the wheelchair of skating friend Christijn Groeneveld at the GNR concert in Nijmegen please bring it back as soon as possible?" he tweeted. And with success. A few hours later he let his followers know that Christijn was back in his wheelchair.

Thunderstorms that pulled across the Netherlands on Thursday night caused a number of problems. Lighting strikes resulted in fires in several places, as well as some disruptions to train traffic. Rock band Bløf's concert had to be paused for around 20 minutes due to the weather, NOS reports.

Fires in Tilburg, Zwijndrecht, Weesp, Wijk bij Duurstede and Naarden are all believed to be caused by lightning strikes. Lightning is also believed to be behind a big fire in a pig company in Heeswijk-Dinther, according to Omroep Brabant. Two barns burnt down, killing around 4 thousand sows.

The Radboud University Medical Center in Nijmegen is teaming up with Erasmus MC and the Haven hospital in Rotterdam for an experiment in using a parasite found in mice for a new malaria vaccine for humans. The first three volunteers were given a genetically modified rodent malaria as vaccine on Tuesday, the Telegraaf reports. 

Pope Francis sent a letter expressing his apostolic blessing over terminally ill six year old Tijn Kolsteren from Hapert.

The body of a missing snowboarder from Nijmegen was found on Sunday, almost two weeks after he was buried by an avalanche in the French Alps. He and two friends were caught in an avalanche on March 7th while on a skiing vacation with a group of other Nijmegen students.

The participants of a fatal skiing holiday in the French Alps, organized by Christian student association Navigators, arrived back in Nijmegen on Thursday morning. At least two members of the group were killed in an avalanche on Tuesday, a third is still missing, the Telegraaf reports.