Fire damage mounts as blazes spread
Fires around Porto Germeno appear to have affected an area of over 10,000 hectares
Fires around Porto Germeno appear to have affected an area of over 10,000 hectares
PORTO GERMENO, Greece (AFP) — Greece on Sunday faced multiple fronts and a growing damage toll with wildfires believed to have devastated swathes of forest and agricultural land, and the prime minister warning of "extremely difficult" days ahead.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said Greece had faced "extreme weather conditions and winds" that often reached 100 kilometers an hour.
"When the winds blow with such force, even the dozens of aircraft we have at our disposal cannot operate safely," he wrote on Facebook.
"There are moments when nature and the intensity of weather phenomena surpass any human planning and any operational capability."
Nearly 500 firefighters were battling blazes around the popular coastal village of Porto Germeno, some 70 kms northwest of Athens, the fire department said.
They were attempting to keep the fire from approaching the western outskirts of Athens after it scaled a mountain overnight.
Some 100 firefighters were fighting another blaze in Aigialia in the northern Peloponnese.
A new fire broke out late Saturday on the Ionian Sea island of Cephalonia.
The National Observatory's climate tracker meteo.gr said early estimates indicated that over 6,500 hectares had been burned in separate fires on the Gulf of Corinth which also swept Porto Germeno.
Porto Germeno and other villages were evacuated when the fire broke out on Friday but local authorities say scores of homes were damaged or destroyed.
"We could not believe what we were seeing, the fire spread extremely rapidly," said Nikos Georgopoulos from the laboratory of forest management at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
"Porto Germeno had a small fire three years ago. Now the flames have swept over it again," he told state TV ERT.
'Megafire'
Earlier this week, fires on the islands of Crete and Paros affected another 6,000 hectares according to meteo.
But Theodore Giannaros, a wildfire meteorologist and senior researcher at the National Observatory, said the fires around Porto Germeno appear to have affected an area of over 10,000 hectares — almost double the original estimate.
"Unfortunately, it is highly likely (if not almost certain) that this particular wildfire will be classified as a megafire," Giannaros wrote on Facebook.
Firefighters have faced dozens of fires daily and Greece's Civil Protection Minister Evangelos Tournas on Saturday said the fire department had been "pushed to its limits."
