In almost all fire areas in Greece, the flames rage with undiminished intensity. In the north of the second largest Greek island of Evia, the situation is catastrophic, according to the mayor of the small port city of Istiaia, Giannis Kotzias: “We are alone. Our end is near, ”he told the Greek news channel Skai. The situation on the Peloponnese peninsula was also out of control on Sunday morning. The most dangerous fire raged there south of the small town of Megalopolis. Another fire ate its way from the west of the island near Olympia into the densely forested mountainous Arcadia in the interior of the peninsula.
The mayors of the region are calling for more help from the air.
They criticized the fact that the decision-makers in Athens had deployed more fire-fighting planes in the area of the Greek capital in the past two days.
With the result that the fires in the provinces got out of hand.
In the north of the Greek capital, the situation continued to ease on Sunday.
The fire brigade and volunteers as well as the military could now extinguish smaller sources of fire, said an officer of the fire brigade on the state radio.
Rescue workers and residents at the end of their tether
Firefighters from Romania, France, Cyprus, Croatia, Israel, Great Britain, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Egypt, Qatar and Kuwait will take part in the extinguishing work over the next few days. Firefighters from Germany are also expected in Athens in the middle of next week. The help is urgently needed, the emergency services and the residents of the affected regions are at the end of their tether after more than a week of continuous work. Increasingly, volunteers from other parts of the country are making their way to the crisis areas, for example in Turkey, where, according to the disaster control authority Afad, thousands travel on their own to the fire areas to support the fight against the flames.
The pictures from the north of the second largest island of Evia are shocking: the people there fought through the night against the flames with all possible means. Almost 500 firefighters and countless citizens were on duty. The residents tried to cut aisles with tractors and prevent the flames from spreading to their homes. In large parts the power has failed and more and more villages are being evacuated while the fire is eating its way over the island, which is densely forested with pine trees.
The Greek civil defense chief Nikos Chardalias spoke in the evening of two major fire fronts on Evia and an extremely difficult situation across the country. Only in the north of Athens did the situation appear to have eased somewhat recently. However, the emergency services are on high alert because new fires keep breaking up, said Chardalias. In addition to the fire brigade, the military is also deployed there to prevent new major fires.
The fire brigade is also in constant use in Italy. She moved out more than 180 times on Saturday evening in Sicily alone because of forest fires. The popular holiday island was hardest hit. The rescuers also had more than 100 missions in Calabria in the extreme south of Italy and in Apulia on the Adriatic Sea. In Calabria, the flames blazed in a national park, among other places. The fire brigade also reported two fatalities in the region who were killed in the forest fires.