Rising temperatures are leading to longer wildfire seasons.
Penteli, Greece:
Thousands of people fled their homes around Athens on Monday, including in the historic city of Marathon, as strong winds fanned a wall of forest fires closer to the Greek capital.
A 30-kilometer-long front line of fires, more than 25 meters high in some places, was moving towards Athens, public broadcaster ERT reported.
Nearly 700 firefighters and more than 30 aircraft battled the blazes that had spread to the city’s outskirts near Mount Pentelikon.
Authorities opened the Olympic stadium in northern Athens and other stadiums to accommodate the refugees. Three major hospitals have been placed on standby.
One firefighter suffered serious burns, another was hospitalized with breathing problems and 13 other people were treated for milder breathing problems, fire department spokesman Vassilis Vatrakogiannis said.
Halandri was the last suburban municipality to order a partial evacuation of areas threatened by the flames.
“Due to the direction of the wind, we decided on a preventive evacuation,” Mayor Simos Roussos told ERT. “The fire is very close.”
Television footage showed flames burning between houses in Nea Penteli, a leafy Athens suburb, which also ordered residents to move.
Several smaller communities and towns, including Marathon, which gives the Olympic long-distance race its name, began evacuating on Sunday.
“We are facing a biblical catastrophe,” said Stergios Tsirkas, the mayor of Marathon. “Our entire city is on fire,” he told television channel Skai.
Smoke drifted through central Athens as thick gray clouds engulfed Mount Pentelikon, which rises above the capital and is known for producing the marble used in the Acropolis and other ancient buildings.
“Civil protection fought hard all night, but despite superhuman efforts, the fire evolved quickly,” said Vathrakogiannis.
Winds had reignited the fire in 40 different locations on Monday, he said.
A children’s hospital and a military medical facility in Penteli were evacuated at dawn, Vathrakogiannis said.
The destruction revived memories of the Mati disaster, the coastal area near Marathon where 104 people died in July 2018 in a tragedy later blamed on evacuation delays and errors.
Greece’s summer forest fire season has seen dozens of daily fires this year, after the Mediterranean recorded its warmest winter and hottest June and July since reliable data collection began in 1960.
Temperatures around Athens are expected to peak at 39 degrees Celsius (102 degrees Fahrenheit) on Monday, with winds gusting up to 50 kilometers (31 miles) per hour.
– ‘Engulfed in flames’ –
“Forest fire near you. Follow the instructions of the authorities,” according to text messages sent to people in the Attica region, indicating which direction to flee.
Civil Protection Minister Vassilis Kikilias warned on Saturday that half of the country faced a high risk of fires due to high temperatures, strong winds and drought.
On Monday, he said a fire that broke out on Sunday near the town of Varnavas was spreading even though a water bombing plane reached the area in just five minutes.
“We all work 24 hours a day,” says firefighter Marinos Peristeropoulos.
“The fire spread very quickly because of the strong winds,” he told AFP near one of the hotspots in Grammatiko.
Scientists say man-made fossil fuel emissions are worsening the length, frequency and intensity of heat waves around the world.
According to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, rising temperatures are leading to longer forest fire seasons and an increase in the area burned.
Other parts of Europe are also experiencing high temperatures.
In parts of France, temperatures rose above 40 degrees Celsius on Sunday. In Rome, temperatures were expected to reach 38 degrees Celsius on Monday and remain around 36 degrees Celsius this week.
In the Netherlands, temperatures between 32 and 35 degrees Celsius are expected.
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