Greece is burning for the seventh consecutive day. While the country is facing an exceptional heat wave, with temperatures above 40°C, forest fires are breaking out all over the territory. 64 fires broke out on Sunday alone, according to firefighters. The most important fire remains that of the island of Rhodes, against which the Greek rescuers have been fighting since July 17.
Fortunately, Athens benefits from international reinforcements. On July 18, the government called on the European Union Civil Protection Mechanism (UCPM), an initiative launched by the European Commission in 2001. It makes it possible to pool the civil protection resources of the Member States, as well as of nine other States (Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Iceland, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Norway, Serbia, Turkey and Ukraine). These can then be mobilized at the request of any country facing a disaster. Since its creation, the MPCU has responded to more than 650 requests for assistance. In 2022, it was activated 106 times, in response to the war in Ukraine, fires in Europe, the Covid-10 pandemic and floods in Pakistan.
Two Canadair sent by France
As soon as the MPCU was activated, France announced the dispatch of two Canadairs and a reconnaissance aircraft. Two Canadair were also loaned by Italy. “Romania, Slovakia and Poland also responded” to Greece’s request, announced Yannis Artopios, spokesperson for the fire brigade. Poland sent nearly 150 firefighters, while around thirty Slovak firefighters and fifty Romanian firefighters were dispatched to the scene. Jordan, Turkey and Israel also provided support via helicopters and planes.
All this aid is welcome for Greece, which is currently experiencing “a 16-17 day heat wave”, according to Kostas Lagouvardos, research director at the Institute for Environmental Research and Sustainable Development of the National Observatory of Athens. “This has never happened before in our country,” he said. The mercury should drop slightly on Monday July 24 to reach 37°C in Athens, before rising to 44°C on Tuesday, according to the national weather service EMY.
These extreme temperatures favor the development of forest fires. More than 30,000 people have already been evacuated from the island of Rhodes. 250 firefighters continue to fight the fire, supported by fifty trucks, ten Canadair and eight helicopters. “It won’t be over tomorrow or the day after tomorrow,” said Vassilis Varthakogiannis, spokesman for the Greek firefighters. “The fire will keep us busy for several more days.” For their part, the airlines TUI and Jet2 have announced that they will suspend all their passenger flights to the very touristic island of Rhodes.
Residential areas were evacuated in Euboea, an island located about a hundred kilometers from Athens. In Corfu, another Greek island very popular with tourists, nearly 2,500 people were evacuated overnight from Sunday to Monday, while a forest fire raged in the North. Forest fires are common in Greece during the summer. By 2021, they had killed three people and ravaged more than 100,000 hectares of forest.