Greece battles wildfire near capital as summer’s first heatwave hits

Coastal blaze triggers evacuation orders, days after state of emergency declared over fires on Aegean island of Chios.

A fast-moving wildfire has engulfed holiday homes and forest land on a section of the Greek coastline just 40km (25 miles) south of the capital, Athens.

More than 100 firefighters, supported by two dozen firefighting aircraft, battled the wildfire that tore across the coastal area of Palaia Fokaia on Thursday, officials said. The flames were whipped up by high winds as temperatures approached 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in the country’s first heatwave of the summer.

Fire department spokesman Vassilis Vathrakogiannis told reporters that 40 people had been evacuated by police, with evacuation orders issued for a total of five areas. A seaside roadway running across the affected areas was protectively cordoned off, he added.

The coastguard said two patrol boats and nine private vessels were on standby in the Palaia Fokaia area in case an evacuation by sea became necessary.

“We’re telling people to leave their homes,” local town councillor Apostolos Papadakis said on Greece’s state-run ERT television.

The cause of the fire was not immediately known, but the fire department spokesman said that an arson investigation unit had been sent to the area.

Local mayor Dimitris Loukas said on ERT television that several houses were believed to have been damaged by the blaze.

The wider Athens area, as well as several Aegean islands, were on Level 4 of a 5-level scale measuring the risk of wildfires owing to the weather conditions, with the heatwave expected to last until the weekend.

Early in the week, hundreds of firefighters took four days to bring a major wildfire under control on the eastern Aegean island of Chios, where a state of emergency was declared and more than a dozen evacuation orders issued.

The fire department said one woman had been arrested on suspicion of having contributed to the sparking of that fire.

Greece has spent hundreds of millions of euros to compensate households and farmers for damage related to extreme weather and to acquire new equipment to deal with wildfires.

It has increased its number of firefighters to a record 18,000 this year.

Scientists say human-caused climate change is contributing to extreme weather conditions and extending heatwaves for billions of people across the world.