Fires continue to advance in northeastern Greece near the port city of Alexandroupolis for the second day in a row due in part to winds at 7 Beaufort, authorities said on Sunday.
“For the second day in a row, firefighters, volunteers, army, police and local authorities are waging a great battle against the fire in Alexandroupolis,” said Minister of Civil Protection and Climate Crisis, Vassilis Kikilias.
The island of Evia at risk
“Fire risk forecasts place the island of Euboea, Attica, Boeotia, Argolis and Corinth on red alert on Monday,” warned the minister. “Please be careful.” Firefighters have battled 53 wildfires in the past 24 hours, authorities said.
The most important of them is now advancing southeast of the village of Loutros and towards Monastiraki and Doriko, according to the same sources. Firefighters are trying to prevent the fire from reaching an animal rescue center near Doriko, one of their spokespersons, Giannis Artopios, told Open TV.
20,000 people evacuated from Rhodes in July
On Saturday, several villages had to be evacuated. In Greece, in the midst of a heat wave, a fire, started on July 18 and fanned by strong winds, had ravaged in ten days nearly 17,770 hectares in the south of Rhodes, a very touristic island in the Aegean Sea (south-east).
About 20,000 people, mostly tourists, had to be evacuated. The country experienced the biggest heat wave for a month of July at the end of July with temperatures of more than 40°C in many places, according to the National Observatory of Athens. Multiple fires then broke out, in particular on another very touristic island, Corfu (north-west), from where some 2,500 people had to be evacuated.