Staff Writer
Five people were killed in wildfires that had been burning across Greece for two weeks before Greek fire crews tried to put them out on Thursday.
Along with a fresh front that erupted on Wednesday in central Greece, hundreds of firemen supported by reinforcements from the European Union were battling to put out the fires on the Greek islands of Corfu, Evia, and Rhodes.
This week, there were other fires in Croatia and Italy near the Mediterranean, and in Algeria, where the intense heat had dried out the environment to the point of tinder, the flames claimed 34 lives.
As with nine other Mediterranean nations, we are experiencing perilous summer days, said Vassilis Kikilias, the minister of civil protection, on Wednesday.
Although the regional government in Sicily declared a state of crisis after days of extreme heat and flames, some officials there observed an improvement on Thursday.
More than 600 wildfires have reportedly started since July 13 in Greece, according to officials.
According to the authorities, the vast majority were dealt with before they could become a threat.
On Thursday, there is an extremely high risk of fire in more than a dozen Greek districts, according to the civil protection ministry.
In Haskovo, close to the Greek-Bulgarian border, a forest fire started on Wednesday but is still out of control.
Another fire that started early on Thursday near residences in the lush Kifissia neighborhood of Athens was quickly put out.
At the height of the busiest vacation season, tens of thousands of locals and visitors have been evacuated, including 20,000 people on Rhodes, where authorities this week proclaimed a state of emergency.
On Wednesday, a deadly fire near the city’s industrial area in Volos claimed the lives of two people.
In a seaside area close to Volos, an old crippled woman was discovered dead inside her burned-out camper van, while a cattle farmer was slain while attempting to save his cows.
On Thursday, the industrial area was shut down out of caution. Early in the morning, six settlements and villages in the vicinity of the metropolis of around 140,000 inhabitants were evacuated, and more were put on alert.
After a lengthy heatwave, temperatures are predicted to dip on Thursday, but near-gale winds are predicted to make it difficult to put out the fires.
“Difficult” days are ahead
The upcoming days will be “difficult” because of the temperatures and the high winds it will bring, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis warned the cabinet on Wednesday.
Civil Protection Minister Kikilias stated that “extremely high temperatures of over 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) and intense winds have created fire fronts of many kilometers,” adding that personnel were battling through “inconceivable fatigue.”
The heatwaves that have affected areas of Europe and North America this month would have been nearly unthinkable without human-caused climate change, according to scientists from the World Weather Attribution organization this week.
On Wednesday, the office of the EU crisis management commissioner announced that more than 490 firefighters and seven planes had been sent to various locations in Greece as part of the EU’s civil protection system.
Compensation
After a 61-year-old lady was discovered dead in an elevator that had been stalled for several hours in Palermo, possibly due to an energy blackout, three individuals in Italy perished as a result of the fires earlier this week, and investigations are ongoing into a potential fourth casualty.
The fires that have ravaged Sicily over the past two days, according to the civil protection office, “have caused more than 60 million euros in damage.”
The government of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni approved 10 million euros late on Wednesday to reimburse visitors whose excursions to Sicily were derailed by the heatwave’s effects.
This includes people who have been impacted by the shutdown of Catania Airport, which was shut down as a result of the main terminal’s fire on July 16 and has only provided a significantly reduced level of service ever then.
The previous week has also seen water shortages and blackouts in Catania and the neighboring areas, which electricity providers attribute to subterranean lines that have been damaged by heat.
