Wildfires continue to coastal homes and forests in Greece

Wildfires continue to coastal homes and forests in Greece.

On Sunday, Greek firefighters fought fresh flames in the western Peloponnese and northern Greece while battling wildfires on the island of Lesbos for a second day. As a heatwave descended, they evacuated adjacent towns.

Two additional towns, Vrisa and Stavros, had to be evacuated due to a wildfire that erupted in hilly woods on Lesbos in the Aegean Sea near Turkey on Saturday and destroyed homes in the seaside resort of Vatera.

A fresh wildfire in mainland Greece forced the evacuation of Gryllos hamlet after it threatened residences near Krestena in the western Peloponnese.

Anastasios Karnaros, a town council member, told Greek television station Open TV that “the flames have ringed Krestena, there are reports of destroyed houses, and we need aid.”

On Sunday, portions of Greece saw temperatures as high as 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit), as a heatwave that had already affected other parts of Europe moved farther east and was forecast to linger for most of the next week.

In the north of the nation, a wildfire burned for a fourth day as officials battled to control its devastation in a virgin forest close to Dadia, a natural home for black vultures.

As he coordinated operations from the air and on the ground, Civil Protection Minister Christos Stylianidis said, “We are dealing with tough terrain and access with fluctuating winds.”