ATHENS — Greek firefighters battled to control two new fires
around Athens on Monday, forcing the evacuation of several villages after
blistering blazes scorched swathes of land in the country.
اضافة اعلان
Greece's prime minister has linked the devastating blazes to the
"climate crisis", speaking last week as wildfires swept across the
Mediterranean, engulfing parts of Greece, Italy, and Spain.
Scores of firefighters battled fresh blazes Monday near the Greek port city
of Lavrio, as helicopters and planes dropped water from the air, a firefighting
official told AFP.
Locals from three nearby villages southeast of Athens were ordered to
evacuate.
"The fire front is large and the winds in the area are very strong,"
Thanasis Avgerinos, the deputy regional governor of East Attica told AFP.
"This is a very flammable pine-covered area."
Meanwhile, another forest fire broke out in Vilia, Attica, some 60km northwest
of Athens, prompting the mobilization of air and ground forces.
Authorities have called for the evacuation of two nearby villages, while
another 40 firefighters were battling the blazes, according to a firefighting
official.
The fires come on the heels of blazes in recent weeks that have destroyed
homes, properties, pine forests, beehives, and livestock across more than
100,000 hectares of affected land.
The island of Evia, 200km northeast of Athens, has paid the heaviest price
with more than half of the hectares burned there.
The Peloponnese peninsula, 300km west of Athens, but also the northern
suburbs of the capital, were also heavily affected by some 600 fires.
The blazes were finally brought under control Friday.
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has said the fires offered a dire
warning.
"The climate crisis tells us everything must change," he said.
As global temperatures rise, heatwaves are predicted to become more frequent
and intense, and their impacts more widespread, scientists say.
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