The city of Athens is pictured trough smoke, as a wildfire burns in the Corinth region, on May 20, 2021. AFP FILE PHOTO
ATHENS — Firefighters in Greece on Saturday battled over 50 wildfires fanned by high winds, sparking the evacuation of a coastal village.
“Today, 51 fires broke out”, civil protection deputy minister, Nikos Hardalias said in a televised emergency media briefing.
A village on Evia island was evacuated after a large fire broke out in a forest.
Evia island is off the Attica peninsula which also encompasses the capital Athens.
Around 500 people, mainly holidaymakers, fled the village of Niborio, before an official evacuation order was given.
“The fire with the help of the wind moved south and as a result the Fire Brigade officer in charge asked for the preemptive evacuation of the Niborio inhabitants. The blaze rages on but for the moment, no houses or infrastructure are under threat”, Hardalias said.
“The situation remains nightmarish despite the fight we are giving from the air and on the ground, Karystos mayor Lefteris Raviolos told ANA.
Over 60 firefighters and 23 fire engines were battling the blazes as well as six helicopters and seven fire airplanes.
Four fires, all in areas of dried grass, were also burning simultaneously in different locations in the western Attica towns of Elefsina and Aspropyrgos on Saturday, while a forest fire in Varnavas, in the northeast of Attica, was also raging but without threatening homes.
Firefighters managed to control a fire that broke out on the outskirts of the portal city of Volos, in Thessaly, on Saturday afternoon.
According to sources, some livestock had been burnt.
Greece faces forest fires every summer, fanned by dry weather, strong winds and temperatures that often soar well above 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit).
In 2018, 102 people died in the coastal resort of Mati, near Athens, in Greece’s worst-ever fire disaster.
According to daily Kathimerini, 179 fires were caused by negligence and 26 were deliberately set in 2020.