Rescue helicopters collide in Greece as fires spread
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With violent winds blowing for most of the week, firefighters have faced dozens of fires daily
PHOTO: AFP
ATHENS – Two fire helicopters collided in Greece on Aug 2 as forces battled multiple wildfires that have devastated swathes of land, with Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis warning of “extremely difficult” days ahead.
The hired Bell helicopters collided while battling a wildfire in the Psatha area west of Athens, the fire service said on Sunday.
“Search and rescue teams were immediately mobilised to locate and assist the crews,” it said.
State broadcaster ERT reported that one crewmember had been found safe, while rescuers were searching for the second.
Television footage showed one of the helicopters explode and plunge to the ground in flames after an apparent rotor collision.
Mitsotakis earlier said Greece had faced “extreme weather conditions and winds” that often reached 100kmh.
“When the winds blow with such force, even the dozens of aircraft we have at our disposal cannot operate safely,” he wrote on Facebook.
“There are moments when nature and the intensity of weather phenomena surpass any human planning and any operational capability.”
Nearly 500 firefighters were battling blazes around the popular coastal village of Porto Germeno, some 70km northwest of Athens, the fire department said.
They were attempting to keep the fire from approaching the western outskirts of Athens after it scaled a mountain overnight.
Some 100 firefighters were fighting another blaze in Aigialia in the northern Peloponnese.
A new fire broke out late on Aug 1 on the Ionian Sea island of Cephalonia.
A 44-year-old man was arrested on Aug 2 in Cephalonia on suspicion of deliberately starting the fire, according to the Greek news agency ANA.
The National Observatory’s climate tracker meteo.gr said over 6,500ha had been burned in separate fires on the Gulf of Corinth that swept through the popular coastal village of Porto Germeno near Athens.
It added that meteorological conditions remained adverse “mainly due to strong northerly winds, which, however, have partially weakened compared to previous days”.
Porto Germeno and other villages was evacuated when the fire broke out on July 31, but the local authorities say scores of homes were damaged or destroyed.
“We could not believe what we were seeing, the fire spread extremely rapidly,” said Nikos Georgopoulos from the laboratory of forest management at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
“Porto Germeno had a small fire three years ago. Now the flames have swept over it again,” he told state TV ERT.
Footage released by Greek police showed officers going door to door in the village of Agios Nektarios, near Porto Germeno, evacuating residents as a wildfire approached.
Riding motorcycles, officers sounded their sirens and knocked on every door, shouting, “Is anyone there?“
Images showed Greek firefighters battling flames and towering clouds of smoke, while volunteers also helped fight the blaze in the area.
Minas Tsotdanis, a farmer who lost his home in the blaze, said more than a dozen houses had been destroyed in the village.
“Even if my home had been spared, all I would see would be this: a burned forest,” he said, anxiously watching the flames.
Megafire
Earlier, fires on the islands of Crete and Paros affected another 6,000ha, meteo said.
But Theodore Giannaros, a wildfire meteorologist and senior researcher at the National Observatory, said the fires around Porto Germeno appear to have affected an area of over 10,000ha – almost double the original estimate.
“Unfortunately, it is highly likely (if not almost certain) that this particular wildfire will be classified as a megafire,” he wrote on Facebook.
Firefighters have faced dozens of fires daily and Greece’s Civil Protection Minister Evangelos Tournas on Aug 1 said the fire department had been “pushed to its limits”.
Gale-force winds created “extremely difficult conditions resulting in many cases where aircraft either cannot draw water or cannot carry out drops due to extreme turbulence”, Tournas said.
Three firefighters died this week in the line of duty, two in Crete and one in the Peloponnese.
Three firefighters died in the line of duty while fighting the wildfires.
PHOTO: AFP
Though the winds eased late on Aug 1, the greater Athens area and nearby Voiotia and the island of Evia were under near maximum fire risk on Sunday, the civil protection ministry said.
Hit hard by the climate crisis like the rest of the Mediterranean region, Greece is plagued by wildfires every summer due to high temperatures, frequent heat waves and drought. AFP
