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The fires in Greece have come close to Athens

9/12/24

Hundreds of firefighters in Greece have been battling multiple fires that have engulfed the islands of Kos and Zakynthos since last week. In addition, one of the fires began to get dangerously close to the suburbs of Athens where one resident lost his life shortly afterwards. Several firefighters from the Czech Republic and other European Union countries are heading to Greece these days to help.

Photo:Pixabay

At the moment firefighters have the fire near Athens under control in most places except for the higher areas. More than 700 firefighters took part in extinguishing the fire in the vicinity of Athens alone. According to local authorities this is one of the worst fires to hit Greece this year.

In recent years Greece has been plagued by forest fires more and more often in the summer. The main causes are climate change and a decrease in rainfall. Heat waves are longer and more intense thanks to which optimal conditions are created here for fires to occur.

From the data of the European Forest Fire Information System it can be seen that last year fires in Greece burned an area of nearly 43,000 hectares. It is worth noting that 21 thousand hectares were burned in 2022 and only 14 thousand in 2020.

This year's fire which came dangerously close to Athens started in a nearby pine forest. It hadn't rained in the whole area for several weeks and the fire started to spread uncontrollably. Most of the residents were caught off guard by the approaching fire and rescue workers were forced to temporarily evacuate many of them.

Everyone is afraid of a repeat of the 2018 scenario when a forest fire broke out near the city of Marathon and killed 104 residents. Therefore the local authorities did not wait and ordered evacuations in time. 17 planes and 15 helicopters were used to fight the fire which were indispensable in hard-to-reach areas.

According to the latest reports the fire has spread to the suburbs of Nea Penteli Palaia Penteli and Patima Chalandri. Satellite images confirm that the flames have scorched an area of ten thousand hectares. At least 100 houses were damaged.