Greece
Wildfires out of control: Frightened horses rescued from burning barn
Watch the video: Forest fires out of control – frightened horses rescued from burning stables.
Kalivia, Greece: Escape from the flames. Forest fire reaches stables. animals in extreme danger. The farm is south of Athens. Kouvaras, Greece. Evacuation also in neighboring towns. Strong winds fan the flames. Greece suffers from the first heat wave of the year. A second should come later this week.
Several fires are raging south of Athens: horse stables burned down in the village of Kalivia – the frightened animals were brought to safety in a dramatic action.
The fire brigade cannot get three fires under control near Athens. A major fire raged most violently on Tuesday in the Dervenohoria forest area, around 50 kilometers north of the Greek capital. But the fire also continued to burn in the beach area in front of Athens, where numerous residents had to leave their houses the night before – as well as in the vicinity of the health resort of Loutraki near Corinth.
“All civil defense forces fought the fires all night,” said fire department spokesman Yannis Artopios on Tuesday. “The first priority was the protection of human life.” But the emergency services also tried to protect important public infrastructure and privately owned houses.
On Tuesday, 140 firefighters and six fire-fighting planes and a helicopter were deployed in the Dervenohoria forest area. The small communities in the area were not at risk, according to Tanagra Mayor Vassilis Pergalias. But the fire smoke makes it difficult to breathe. In the bathing resorts of Kouvaras, Lagonissi, Anavyssos and Saronida, which are part of the Athens catchment area, 230 firefighters with five helicopters continued to fight the flames on Tuesday, traffic on the adjacent streets remained interrupted. According to the television station ERT, several houses were destroyed by the flames, and a monastery and a riding stable had to be evacuated.
Greece: Heat wave exacerbates forest fire situation
120 firefighters were also on duty in the Loutraki area on Tuesday. According to fire department spokesman Artopios, several houses in Loutraki and the seaside resort of Saronida were damaged; However, an exact inventory of the damage is only possible once the fire has been contained.
Greece has been suffering from its first heat wave of the year since the end of last week. With the high temperatures, however, the risk of forest fires also increases. In the summer of 2021, severe fires were already devastating part of the country. Three people lost their lives and more than 100,000 hectares of forest were destroyed. In 2018, more than a hundred people were killed in the worst fire in the country to date in Mati, near Athens. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis blamed the “climate crisis, which we are going through with increasing intensity” for the fires on Monday evening.