Forest fires
Now the mountains of Parnitha: Fires in Greece rage on
Volunteers fight a forest fire near Athens. photo
© Marios Lolos/Xinhua/dpa
The strong winds subside, but the fires continue to rage unabated: For the sixth day in a row, emergency services in Greece are fighting bush and forest fires on various fronts.
Despite tremendous efforts by emergency services, the flames northwest of Athens reached the national park of the nearby mountain Parnitha last night. As the fire department spokesman Giannis Artopoios told the ERT broadcaster, the fire spread in a gorge of the national park and further towards the mountains.
The task now is to prevent the flames from reaching the “core” of the area, which is densely covered with Kefalonian firs – a species of fir found only in Greece.
“Our goal is to prevent the fire from reaching the fir forest, which covers around 3,500 hectares,” Greek director general for forests and forests, Evangelos Goudoufas, told the Kathimerini newspaper. The firefighters had been fighting for it since Tuesday, and on Wednesday they were supported, among other things, by German fire-fighting aircraft.
But the strong summer wind “Meltemi” continued to make extinguishing work difficult across the country. Because not only in Athens, especially in the extreme north-east of the country in the Dadia National Park, the flames, fueled by strong winds, are blazing almost unchecked.
On Wednesday, a good 80 percent of Greece was still under heavy, stinking clouds of smoke. It should get a little better on Thursday – at least that’s what the forest fire risk forecast, which is issued daily by the Greek civil defense, says. Accordingly, the risk of fire is “high” to “very high” in many parts of the country, but no longer “extreme” as it was at the beginning of the week.