Greece is expecting (again) a particularly difficult summer: two large forest fires raged on Sunday in Attica, the region of Athens, with authorities fearing the worst for the summer period. This country experiences many fires every year but it could be worse this year, after the mildest winter on record, and also the earliest heatwave, with temperatures reaching 44 °C.
Sunday’s fire in the Keratea region, about 20 kilometres south of the Greek capital, started in the Plaka area, a scrubland area. It was approaching homes by early afternoon and strong winds threatened to spread the blaze, according to the Athens News Agency.
Around sixty firefighters and 17 vehicles, as well as eight planes and two helicopters, were deployed to try to put an end to it. Shortly after 12:30 p.m. (9:30 a.m. GMT), authorities set up an alert system, calling on residents in the Markati, Plaka and Panorama areas to evacuate towards Lavrio.
North of the capital, another fire broke out in the suburb of Stamata, whose residents were called to evacuate their homes. An industrial zone of Ritsona, on the island of Euboea, which extends for nearly 160 km in the Aegean Sea, was also engulfed in flames on Sunday.
Black smoke rose above a recycling plant, on the site of which tires, mattresses and other materials were piled up. Firefighters were trying to prevent the fire from spreading to other factories.
On Saturday, a major fire in the same region was able to be controlled, as was, on Sunday morning, the one that broke out the day before on the island of Serifos, after causing significant damage. “The entire southwest of Serifos burned. The flames stopped when they reached the sea,” Serifos mayor Konstantinos Revintis told MEGA TV.
The forecast map published by the Ministry of Civil Protection for Sunday warned of a very high risk of fires for Attica (where Athens is located), the southern Peloponnese peninsula, the island of Crete, the north and the southern Aegean Sea and central Greece.
On Saturday, a fire on Mount Parnitha, not far from the capital, could only be put out after several hours, with the help of reinforcements from several other regions, as well as volunteer firefighters. In total, during the day on Saturday, more than forty fires broke out in Greece, with winds often exceeding 100 km/h, according to the fire service.
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, in his weekly Facebook post on Sunday, called on his compatriots to prepare for a difficult season. “Difficult times are ahead of us. Our effort is continuous, with the help of new tools that help build a new culture of prevention and responsibility,” he wrote.
Thus, he stressed, “the fire in Parnitha was extremely severe but fortunately it was detected immediately thanks to the surveillance drone system that was set up this year for the forests and mountainous areas of Attica.”
