Firefighters in Greece beat back wildfires
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Firefighters work to extinguish a fire from a building during a wildfire in Greece on Aug 13.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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ATHENS – Firefighters in Greece gained ground on Aug 14 against a wildfire outside the third-largest city of Patras while water bombers battled blazes on three other fronts.
Firefighters faced “scattered” pockets of flames around Patras, Greece’s main port to Italy, after an overnight struggle, fire department spokesman Vassilis Vathrakogiannis said.
The fire close was “still active” however in the eastern outskirts of the city of 250,000, he said.
Citing data from the EU’s Copernicus satellite monitoring programme, the Athens national observatory on Aug 14 said fires in the Patras area, the Aegean island of Chios, the Ionian island of Zakynthos and near the western city of Preveza had burned over 10,000ha of forest and agricultural land.
The authorities said three men aged 19 to 27 had been detained on suspicion of starting some of the fires around Patras on Aug 12.
“There are clear signs and even proof of malicious activity that led to these fires,” Civil Protection Minister Giannis Kefalogiannis told a news briefing.
He added that fire services had been called to an average of 70 blazes daily, up from an average of around 40.
Officials on Aug 13 had evacuated a children’s hospital
The ambulance service said over 70 people, including several firefighters, had been treated for minor burns and respiratory problems, many of them in the Patras area.
Many of the stricken areas remained without water or electricity on Aug 14.
Patras’ communist Mayor Kostas Peletidis this week criticised the Government for not sending enough aerial support.
Mr Kefalogiannis, of the ruling conservative party, hit back on Aug 14 claiming that the mayor had encouraged citizens to ignore evacuation orders.
Professor Alexandros Dimitrakopoulos of Thessaloniki’s Aristotle University said forest fires in Greece were now regularly affecting urban areas.
“We have seen it in (the greater Athens area) since 2021, now in Patras,” he told state TV ERT.
Other important fires continued to burn on the islands of Zakynthos and Chios and near Preveza.
Some 600 ground crews and nearly 30 water-bombing aircraft were deployed from dawn in all locations.
Greece this summer has faced several major forest fires amid high temperatures that scientists say human-induced climate change is intensifying. AFP
