(Athens) A fire southeast of Athens, fanned Wednesday by strong winds and high temperatures, led to the evacuation of two localities, announced Greek authorities, who warned of a “very high risk” fire in several regions.
The “fire spread quickly in the area due to very strong winds with gusts which reached force 8 on the Beaufort scale” (62 to 74 km/h), said the fire brigade spokesperson. , Vassilis Vathrakogiannis, during a press briefing.
“Almost every 10 minutes, we observe the start of a fire” in Greece, worried Mr. Vathrakogiannis, specifying nevertheless that “most” had been able to be brought under control quickly.
About 30 kilometers southeast of central Athens, 145 firefighters with 45 vehicles, six planes and 11 helicopters were deployed and vehicle traffic was cut off in the area, which has many homes close to the small town from Koropi.
The residents of two surrounding villages and three private schools were evacuated preventively, Civil Protection services said.
Alerts were sent to the mobile phones of people in the vicinity, they said.
As temperatures of up to 37°C were recorded on Wednesday in Attica, the region surrounding Athens, Civil Protection services warned that the fire risk was “very high” on Wednesday and Thursday in several areas from the country.
But the Minister of Climate Crisis, Vassilis Kikilias, assured that the fire near Athens, which started in bushes, was of criminal origin and not caused “only by weather conditions”.
“The fire and police investigation authorities have visual material clearly showing a man lighting a fire in dry grass,” he added during a press briefing.
Greece recently toughened penalties for arson. The perpetrators of the fires can now be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to 200,000 euros.
Firefighters are fighting on five main fronts on Wednesday, in the Peloponnese (south), on the Aegean island of Lesbos, in Préveza (northwest), in Larissa (center) and near Thessaloniki (north), according to the authorities.
Civil protection warned that Thursday would again be a day with “very high fire risks”.
Greece, accustomed to heat waves, has been preparing for weeks for a particularly difficult summer in terms of heat waves and forest fires after having suffered the hottest winter in its history, the authorities have warned.
The Mediterranean country also experienced its first wave of severe heat last week, with temperatures reaching over 44°C in some places.
It had experienced devastating fires and a two-week heatwave, unprecedented in its duration, in 2023.
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), rising temperatures caused by human-caused fossil fuel emissions are lengthening the fire season and increasing the area burned.
