Advancing flames devoured forests and homes as wildfires that have killed 20 people raged across swathes of Greece Wednesday, with blazes also burning in neighbouring Turkey and Spain’s canary islands.
Wildfires ravaged northern Greece for a fifth consecutive day yesterday and forced the evacuation of settlements on the outskirts of the capital, Athens.
The authorities said they were battling scores of blazes around the country after weeks of searing heat turned many areas into tinderboxes.
Officials called the profusion of summer wildfires “the worst” since record-keeping began, noting that 355 new fires broke out in the past five days — 209 of them in the last 24 hours. Firefighters are intensifying their efforts by air and land, but they are facing gale-force winds fueling the fires.
Greece regularly battles major wildfires that become deadly. But fire-season preparedness measures, like digging firebreaks and clearing out dry grasses, are still lacking in the country, and environmental groups say the government has mishandled the fires and underinvested in firefighting equipment and training.
