After extreme heat and drought, Greece is now fighting the first forest fires this year. Fires have broken out in several areas near the capital Athens. Numerous people had to be brought to safety.
Several large forest and bush fires have broken out in the greater area of the Greek capital Athens. Civil protection ordered the evacuation of numerous residents, children’s summer camps in several villages in eastern Athens and near the seaside resort of Loutraki in the west of the capital were affected. Houses also burned down there, as state television showed.
After a relatively rainy and cool spring, these are the first major vegetation fires in Greece this year. The state is doing everything to contain the fires, said Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on the sidelines of the EU-Latin America summit in Brussels. “I would like to appeal to our citizens to follow the instructions of the civil defense.”
The top priority in firefighting is the protection of human life. Only then would the protection of property and the environment come about. The fires are also a consequence of the climate crisis, which is being felt more and more intensely, Mitsotakis explained.
Strong winds make extinguishing work difficult
“We are fighting around 20 forest and bush fires that also threaten inhabited regions,” said a spokesman for the fire department. Dozens of planes and helicopters are in use. The situation is difficult because of the strong wind, which is fanning the flames. Wind gusts reached up to 60 kilometers per hour.
The flames quickly ate through the dry bushes and spread to Anavyssos in the densely populated region of Attica, as well as to the seaside resorts of Lagonissi, Anavyssos and Saronida, where many holiday homes are located.
Dense smoke also disrupted traffic on the roads near the town of Kalyvia. Authorities asked residents to leave the area. The monks of the local monastery were taken to safety as a precaution. The Greek public broadcaster ERT showed footage of burnt down houses.
1,200 children rescued from summer camps
According to the authorities, another fire around 80 kilometers west of Athens spread in a forest area near the city of Loutraki near Corinth. There was a strong wind there too. Firefighters reported to the Greek news agency ANA that land and air forces had been mobilized. As a precaution, traffic on the highway between Athens and Corinth was interrupted.
The authorities also ordered evacuations around Loutraki as a precaution. 1,200 children have been rescued from holiday camps near the city, Mayor Giorgos Gkionis said.
Temperatures measured over 44 degrees
Greece has been suffering from its first heat wave of the year since the end of last week. According to the National Observatory of Athens, a maximum temperature of 44.2 degrees was measured in the Thebes region in the center of the country over the weekend. With temperatures reaching 39 degrees in Athens, the Acropolis remained closed Friday through Sunday during the hottest hours of the day.
The Greek weather service EMY predicted a slight cooling of two to four degrees for the next few days. But another heat wave with maximum temperatures of up to 43 degrees is likely to follow on Thursday. The fire brigade warns that the risk of forest fires increases significantly with the temperatures.
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.