A forest chimney burns a forest in the village of Kurkouloi on the island of Euboe, about 150 kilometers north of Athens.
NATURE FIRES reignited in the open air of Athens and forced more evacuations in southern Greece as the weather situation deteriorated and firefighters in a 24-hour war stopped the flames just outside the birthplace of the former Olympic Games.
As they reached further away from the Greek army and European Union countries, planes and helicopters spewing water over the flames near the capital, on the island of Euboa and near ancient Olympia to the south.
“The country is facing an unprecedented environmental crisis, with giant fires,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said after visiting the site where the Olympics were held in ancient times every 4 years since 776 BC for more than a millennium.
More than a dozen villages have been evacuated in the area.
A heat wave that hit southeast Europe for a moment a week also sparked deadly fires in Turkey and Albania and burned the region.
The Government of North Macedonia declared the country in a state of crisis for the next 30 days due to forest fires.
EU Environment Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevicius said global fires and excessive weather conditions during the summer were a clear sign of the will to fight climate change.
“We’re fighting some of the worst wildfires we’ve noticed in decades. But this summer’s floods, heat waves and wildfires may be our new normal,” he wrote in a tweet.
“We have to ask ourselves: is this the world we want to enter?We want immediate action for nature before it is too late.
The EU has stepped up its aid to the countries affected by the fires, sending 40 French firefighters and 8 tonnes of equipment to Greece.
The Greek Civil Protection Agency said the fire threat in southern Greece would increase further today, with windy weather forecasts for parts of the country, despite an expected slight drop in temperatures that reached 45°C (113°F) previously. this week.
The heat wave has been described as Greece’s worst since 1987.
Defense Minister Nikolaos Panagiotopoulos said the armed forces would expand their role in preventing chimneys, with floor patrols, drones and planes over the spaces up to wildfires.
On the outskirts of Athens, a forest chimney has been revived that erupted on Tuesday on the northern outskirts of the capital and broke or destroyed dozens of homes, prompting evacuations, threatening homes and sending thick smoke over the capital.
The EU’s atmospheric monitoring service said smoke plumes from wildfires in the region were obviously visual in satellite imagery, adding that the estimated intensity of wildfires in Turkey is at the highest point since recordings began in 2003.
On the island of Euboea, a main chimney that exploded on Tuesday devastated forests, prompting the evacuation of villages and a camp, causing other people to flee via car and sea.
More than 160 firefighters, 3 aircraft and 3 helicopters were deployed, as well as five floor crews and 57 vehicles.
The fires caused deaths or serious injuries, but Greek scientists said the overall destruction in just 3 days this month in Greece exceeded 50% of the average domain burned in the country in recent years.
A report from the Athens Observatory said about 14,800 acres went up in smoke between Sunday and Wednesday, up from 25,700 acres for last year’s total.
The reasons for the forest fires in Greece were unclear, however, the government claims that human error and negligence are the main culprits.
However, an arson fire was suspected in the chimney near ancient Olympia, and officials noted that seven chimneys temporarily followed each other in the domain on Wednesday.