ATHENS – With fires popping up around Greece, the job for firefighters became more difficult as temperatures were set to soar as high as 41 degrees Celsius (105.8) Fahrenheit the weekend of Aug. 5-6 and continue into the next week.
The Hellenic national weather service said the heat would be worse in the west and northwest as well as the western Peloponnese with temperatures of some 35 degrees Celsius (95F) in Athens and on Aegean islands who will largely escape the summer blast.
Fires over the last week flared up south of Athens and three firefighters were hospitalized with burns as authorities issued an evacuation order near a seaside town as winds whipped flames furiously.
About 100 people were told to evacuate near Kalyvia, 40 kilometers (24.8 miles) from Athens, the Mayor’s office told the Reuters news service. The fire burned two cars and damaged a fire truck, they said. About 70 firefighters and volunteers were involved along with two water-dropping helicopters.
After firefighters got under control an arson fire on the refugee-overrun island of Lesbos, another started on the southern Ionian island of Kythera on the country’s southern coast.
The blaze was confined to a stretch of farmland in the leafy area of Mylopotamos on the island’s western side, Kathimerini said.
Greece’s fire on Aug. 4 was also able to put down blazes on the island of Spetses, in the Peloponnesian region of Ileia, in Kavala in northern Greece, as well as near Athens, in the towns of Anavysos and Saronida east of the capital, where four firemen were injured and one home destroyed on Aug. 3.
This is the 10th anniversary of the inferno of 2007 which saw fires rage uncontrolled across Greece, many of them believed to have been set amid criticism it was done so to let the land then be developed as there is no law against building on burned-out forests.
The worst period was from Aug. 23-27 and by the time it was over some 84 people had been killed, including a tragedy when a mother, her four children and their grandmother were overrun by fast-spreading flames in the Peloponnese and killed.
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Photo Source: Wikimedia Commons Copyright: Costas78 License: CC-BY-SA
Source: thenationalherald.com
