In the northeast of France, near the city of Verdun, a dense forest now covers land that has never been allowed to return to farmland. Since 1919, French law has prohibited plowing, building houses, or sowing crops on tens of thousands of hectares designated as "red zones." These areas, totaling 120,000 hectares across eleven departments, were deemed too dangerous for civilian life to return due to the remnants of World War I. A century later, the ban remains in place in the most affected regions, and the ground continues to reveal what was buried beneath it. Each winter, the freeze-thaw cycle pushes unexploded shells and other debris to the surface, requiring the annual collection of 500 tons of munitions. Walking through the Verdun forest, one is on a landscape shaped entirely by war. The ground is marked by hollows and raised areas every few meters, remnants of millions of artillery impacts from the conflict. This area, described by early surveyors as a "lunar landscape," consists mostly of shell craters filled with muddy water and metal debris. The forest, which was replanted after a decade of disuse, now serves as a reminder of the devastation of the war. Official signs warn visitors to stay on marked paths due to the continued presence of explosive devices. According to a regional demining official, the task of completely clearing the area using electromagnetic detection is nearly impossible due to the high concentration of shrapnel, barbed wire, and other metal debris in the soil. Every winter, the freeze-thaw process in the soil under the Meusian region repeats a natural phenomenon. As water freezes, expands, and thaws in spring, it creates voids that gradually push heavier objects, such as buried shells, toward the surface. This mechanical process ensures that unexploded ordnance continues to resurface, making any promise of definitive cleanup illusory. Each year, hikers and agents of the National Forestry Office report these discoveries to the appropriate authorities, but they are not allowed to touch them. The French Civil Protection maintains a dedicated service for this century-old threat, collecting and destroying more than 500 tons of explosive devices annually. A portion of these munitions, between 5% and 10%, still contains chemical agents from World War I. Since 1945, the cumulative total of explosives removed from French soil is staggering—over 660,000 bombs, 13.5 million mines, and 24 million shells and other explosives. In the area around Verdun, some unofficial estimates suggest that hundreds of tons of munitions are still being extracted from the ground each year. At this rate, it would take approximately 700 years to completely clear the former battlefields. Despite efforts over the decades, the red zone status for the most heavily contaminated areas has never been fully lifted. While parts of the original 178,511 hectares were gradually declassified for agriculture and urban development, the core area around Verdun remains off-limits to farming and residential use. The land is now state-owned, and six communes in the Meuse region—Beaumont-en-Verdunois, Bezonvaux, Cumières-le-Mort-Homme, Fleury-devant-Douaumont, Haumont-près-Samogneux, and Louvemont-Côte-du-Poivre—continue to exist as "dead communes," with no permanent residents and no elected mayor. Some areas, like the Spincourt forest, remain particularly hazardous due to the presence of toxic chemical residues from the past, making any agricultural use impossible.