Forest fires
Tenerife, Greece, Canada: Fires continue
In the extreme north-east of Greece, several large forest and bush fires have been brought under control. photo
© Ilias Kotsireas/InTime News/AP/dpa
In Canada, the military is now helping to fight the flames, and new fires are flaring up in Greece. There is progress on Tenerife. The WWF speaks of the “age of mega fires”.
Cautious optimism in view of the serious fires in Canada and on Tenerife: On the Canary Island, the fires are not yet under control, but stabilized, they say. The situation is also said to have improved in the Canadian province of British Columbia.
In Greece, on the other hand, three new major fires broke out on Monday alone – stormy winds there heated up the flames. The overview.
Greece
In Greece, a forest fire has been raging on Euboea, the second largest island in the country, since midday. Two towns were partially evacuated. A fire also broke out in the extreme north-east of the country near the border river Evros. There it burns in the national park Dadia. And there has also been a fire near the port city of Kavala in northern Greece since the afternoon – four firefighters were injured and taken to hospitals, and four towns were evacuated.
Large forest and bush fires in the Boeotia region northwest of Athens and near the northeast port city of Alexandroupoli also remained out of control. The flames raged there for the third day in a row.
Due to persistent drought and stormy winds, the risk of forest fires remains very high to extremely high in large parts of the country, as civil defense warns. In view of the many sources of fire, there is international help for Greece: Cyprus sent two fire-fighting planes, Romania sent ten fire-fighting vehicles with 56 firefighters who were supposed to arrive in the evening.
Canada
Wind, drought and heat have also fueled the forest fires in Canada. In the particularly affected town of West Kelowna on Lake Okanagan in the south of the province of British Columbia, the situation is “finally looking better,” said local fire chief Jason Brolund at a press conference. According to this, no other houses were destroyed in the community in a period of 24 hours.
Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that the military would now help with evacuations and other logistical tasks. Tens of thousands of people have had to leave their homes in the affected areas. Canada has been battling wildfires for months. However, this year is the worst known wildfire season in the country’s history.
Tenerife
Progress has recently been made in firefighting on Tenerife. “The worst is over,” said Canary Islands Prime Minister Fernando Clavijo. It cannot yet be said that the fire is under control. But one is in the process of “stabilizing it on all fronts”. There is hope that many of the approximately 13,000 evacuees will be able to return to their homes on Monday.
According to Clavijo, these are the worst fires on Tenerife in the past 40 years. Police now believe the fire was caused by arson.
So far, the flames have covered almost 134 square kilometers of nature in the north and north-east of Tenerife, which is almost the area of the Principality of Liechtenstein – and more than 6 percent of the territory of the Spanish Atlantic island. The firefighters are now hoping for the weather: the winds are said to be weaker, the temperatures are expected to drop and the humidity to rise.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez flew to the island to see the situation on the ground and promised help with reconstruction. “All of Spain is on the side of the Canary Islands and Tenerife,” said the socialist.
The environmental protection organization WWF warned of increasing fire disasters. “The advancing climate crisis has brought us into the age of mega fires: Where there have always been forest fires, such as in Greece and Canada, they are becoming deadly infernos,” said WWF forest officer Johannes Zahnen on Monday. The increasing fires are warning signals from nature, climate protection must be strengthened. The WWF will therefore take to the streets together with Fridays for Future on September 15th for the nationwide climate strike.