Firefighters battled forest fires near the Greek capital Athens on Sunday evening, as the country braces for a tough fire season and soaring summer temperatures after the warmest winter and earliest heatwave on record.
“Two extremely dangerous fires that broke out in residential areas and spread rapidly due to strong winds in Keratea and Stamata were extinguished today in Attica,” Minister for Climate Crisis and Civil Protection Vassilis Kikilias said on Sunday evening.
Authorities have ordered the evacuation of at least eight areas around Athens, as forest fires have destroyed homes and cars.
“Today is the hardest day that the firefighters have had to face in this year’s fire season,” said fire department spokesman Vasilis Vathrakogiannis at an emergency press conference on Sunday.
Near the town of Keratea, south of Athens, and to the north, in the community of Stamata, winds exceeding 60 km/h (37 mph) fueled the fires.
“The situation is very difficult because strong winds are still blowing. They have not subsided and there are numerous outbreaks,” Dimitris Loukas, mayor of Lavreotiki, told Athens News Agency.
A fire also broke out on Sunday at a recycling factory in Ritsona, near the island of Evia, filling the sky with black smoke as tires and mattresses on the surrounding land burned. Firefighters struggled to contain the blaze from spreading to other factories in the industrial zone.
In his weekly Facebook post, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis called on Greeks to prepare for a tough forest fire season.
“The difficult times are still ahead of us,” he said. “Our effort is continuous. In this effort, our allies are new instruments that build a new culture of prevention and responsibility.”
