Greece on Saturday requested EU help to battle wildfires that have sprung up in different regions, one of the worst just north of Athens, destroying houses and forcing police to evacuate homes.
The fires broke out nearly a week into a heatwave, in which temperatures have passed 45C.
Strong winds were fanning the blaze near Athens and other sites and the Peloponnese peninsula that juts out west of the capital, fire brigade spokesman Vasileios Vathrakogiannis said.
They were also feeding the flames on the islands of Crete, Euboea and Kythera, he added. “The hard part is ahead of us,” he told reporters.
Several regions were under the highest level of alert — Red Category 5 — meaning an extreme risk of wildfires, due to the hot and dry conditions.
Firefighters had brought 44 fires under control out of 52 that had broken out over the past 24 hours, said the brigade spokesman.
Greece had requested European assistance through the RescEU mechanism, asking for six firefighting aircraft to bolster efforts to contain the fires, he added.
Firefighting units from the Czech Republic were already operating as part of European assistance.
Blaze near Athens
One of the most critical fire fronts was just 30 kilometres (20 miles) north of Athens, where firefighters said authorities were forced to evacuate the village of Drosopigi as flames closed in.
Several houses in Drosopigi were ablaze, as the strong winds pushed the flames through the buildings.
One front of the fire had reached Kryoneri, another village farther north, where houses were also burning.
Police said they had evacuated at least 27 people from their houses.
Five people were taken to the hospital. A fireman with burns, three people suffering breathing difficulties and an old woman who appeared to have suffered a stroke.
The smell of the burning wood carried as far as the centre of Athens.
Another wildfire, on the island of Kythera, trapped dozens of people on a beach who had to be rescued by a coastguard vessel and three private boats.
The fire was burning trees planted after an earlier devastating fire in 2017.
“Out of control”
The heatwave, which started in Greece last Monday, is expected to last for a week, according to the country’s weather service.
The National Observatory in Athens reported that temperatures soared to a staggering 45.8°C in Messinia on Friday. By Saturday, the heat persisted, reaching 45.2°C in Amfilohia, western Greece.
“The situation is out of control. The destruction is immeasurable,” Giorgos Psathas – Mayor of Chalcis
On the island of Euboea, also called Evia, northeast of Athens, two fire trucks were destroyed and five firefighters were taken to the hospital with light injuries.
“The situation is out of control. The destruction is immeasurable,” Giorgos Psathas, the mayor of Chalcis, told the Athens-Macedonian News Agency.
In the Messinia region, evacuations were also underway due to the threat posed by the fire.
Photo: AAP/Kostas Kourgias
The head of the fire brigade put all services there on general alert, said fire services spokesman Vathrakogiannis.
Civil protection authorities said the risk of fire remained “very high” Sunday, particularly in Attica, central and western Greece, and Crete.
Hundreds of firefighters and forest commandos battled the flames through the night, and firefighting aircraft rejoined the battle at first light on Sunday.
Last month, fires on Greece’s fifth-biggest island, Chios, in the northern Aegean, destroyed 4,700 hectares (11,600 acres) of land.
In early July, a wildfire on the island of Crete forced the evacuation of 5,000 tourists.
The most destructive year for wildfires was 2023, when 20 people were killed and nearly 175,000 hectares were lost.
© Agence France-Presse
