Greek firefighters fight forest fires on the third day Greece news

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Emergency service personnel said that as the weather conditions improved, the main front of the fire was brought under control.

In the forest fire west of the Greek capital Athens, hundreds of firefighters fought for three days. As the weather conditions improved, the main front of the fire was brought under control.

With the support of 16 aircraft and the army, more than 270 firefighters made a rescue in the Geraneia Mountains, which the authorities said was the “largest time” in decades.

In a speech to the local ANT1 television station on Saturday, Fire Chief Stefanos Kolokouris said that due to better weather, firefighters can control the main outbreak site later on Friday, but There are still “a few active and scattered” fires.

There were no reports of injuries, but many houses were damaged or destroyed, and twelve villages and small villages were evacuated.

Every summer, Greece faces violent forest fires due to dry weather, strong winds and high temperatures. [Valerie Gache/AFP]

Euthymios Lekkas, professor of environmental disaster management at the University of Athens, said the fire about 90 kilometers (55 miles) from Athens burned more than 55 square kilometers (21 square miles) of pine forests and other land, some of which were agricultural land.

He told the ERT public television station: “This is a huge ecological disaster, and efforts need to be made to avoid landslides and terrible floods in the fall.”

The civil protection agency said that only when the fire is fully controlled, the extent of the damage, especially the damage to the farmers, can be clarified.

The report said the fire started late Wednesday, near the village of Schinos near the resort of Loutraki in the Gulf of Corinth, apparently someone burning vegetation in the olive groves.

The fire caused smoke to circulate, and Athens ashes fell from the sky. This is the first forest fire of the season.

Every summer, Greece usually faces violent forest fires due to dry weather, strong winds and high temperatures, and the temperature usually soars above 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit).

In 2018, in the worst fire ever recorded in Greece, 102 people died in the coastal resort of Mati near Athens.



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