2023-07-19 01:31:00
Greek firefighters faced around 50 new blazes on Tuesday, warning of the high risk of new fires on Wednesday due to expected strong winds. It is “a difficult day: they are struggling with several fires and are fighting in many sectors of the territory”, explained the spokesperson for the firefighters, Yannis Artopios.
Forty-seven forest fires have broken out in the past 24 hours, another spokesman, Vassilis Vathrakogiannis, later said.
Two of them, west of Athens, were still not under control at the end of the day. The European Civil Protection mechanism has been activated and four Canadair from France and Italy are due to arrive in Greece as reinforcements “in the next few hours”, he announced.
At the request of the President of the Republic, the @SecCivileFrance sends a support mission to Greece, which is facing very large fires, as part of the European Union’s civil protection mechanism. 2 Canadair, 1 reconnaissance aircraft and 18 personnel…
— Gérald DARMANIN (@GDarmanin) July 18, 2023
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who left the EU-Latin America summit in Brussels prematurely, went to the Civil Protection Operations Coordination Center on his return to Athens, according to his services.
VIDEO. Fires in Greece: residents evacuated
The most violent fire is in the forest of Dervenohoria, 50 km north of Athens, and it is spreading rapidly. Some 250 firefighters, 11 planes and nine helicopters are deployed in the area, he said, and had to rescue several people in the area where houses were destroyed by the flames.
“The winds are not as strong as yesterday” but “the night will still be difficult,” said Vassilis Pergalias, the mayor of Tanagra, a town near Dervenohoria, on the public television channel ERT. 80 km west of Athens, near the Isthmus of Corinth, another front is still active in the seaside resort of Loutraki where 120 firefighters, five planes and a helicopter are operating.
On the other hand, the seaside area of Kouvaras, 40 km from the capital, where a fire broke out on Monday afternoon before winds carried it to neighboring towns, was out of danger.
Heat wave until the end of the weekend
As in southern Europe, Greece has been hit since last Friday by its first heat wave of the year with a peak of 44.2 ° C in the region of Thebes (center), informed the National Observatory of Athens. Sunday evening, the mercury began to drop slightly but strong winds, between 50 and 60 km / h, began to blow.
While a new heat wave is expected to hit Greece from Thursday until the end of the weekend, Civil Protection has warned of the high risk of new fires, particularly in the region around Athens, Attica , in Crete (south) or in the south of the Peloponnese peninsula (southwest) where winds of 50 to 60 km / h are still expected for Wednesday.
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