The terrible cost of the fires raging across Greece unfolding include the environmental disaster as over 2,528 hectares of dense woodlands are ablaze in the Dadia-Lefkimi-Soufli National Park in the north east Evros region. These areas are one of Europe’s most important protected habitats.
Up to 320 firefighters, two water bombing airplanes and four helicopters were deployed to fight the fire in Dadia national park with some villages in the area having been evacuated.
According to Kathimerini, Greece’s National Observatory of Forest Fires (NOFFi) has produced preliminary maps of the spread of the forest fires across the country.
It also noted that 1,709 hectares of forest had burned in Vatera on Lesvos and that fires raging on Mount Pendeli near Athens had destroyed about 2,430 hectares of forest.
The maps of the fires drawn from the current preliminary analysis of satellite images will be combined with later images from the Sentinel-2 satellite once the fires have been put out to be use by a number of organisations, including the Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki, and the Interbalkan Environmental Centre to help in the restoration of the forests.
The director of Laboratory of Forest Management and Remote Sensing, Prof Ioannis Gitas, said that there were more fires in Greece this year than there had been in 2021and that the current heat waves had begun earlier than they had last year.
Dadia-Lefkimi-Soufli National Park is considered to be one of the most important protected habitats for rare birds in Europe. It is home to three of Europe’s four vulture species – the griffon and Egyptian vultures and holds the only breeding population of black vultures in the Balkans. Thirty of Europe’s 36 species of raptors are to be found in the national park which also provides the habitat for 104 species of butterfly, 13 amphibian, 29 reptile, and 65 mammal species – 24 of which are bat species.
Greece’s Minister for Climate Crisis and Civil Protection Christos Stylianidis said on Monday that: “It’s an uphill battle, a fight to ensure the survival of this exceptional ecosystem. … After this difficult fight, experts must look into redressing the problems sparked by the fire.”
