Fire-fighters in heatwave-plagued Greece on Friday concentrated their efforts on preventing a rekindling of wildfires in western Attica prefecture, west of the Athens-Piraeus agglomeration, in southern Laconia prefecture as well as a site in remote and rugged central Rhodes, the large Dodecanese island.
The first batch of serious wildfires in the country erupted on Monday, and continued throughout the week. The worst blazes were southeast of Athens in a sparsely populated and hilly part of Attica prefecture, which however, subsequently threatened a string of coastal resorts. Another wildfire front then erupted west of Athens, burning along an axis from the upland Dervenochoria settlement to the industrial town of Mandra.
In total, fire-fighters and emergency crews were dealing with a total of 79 wildfires throughout the country on the day, although most were immediately extinguished.
High temperatures and arid conditions are again forecast over the next few days, meaning that much of southern Greece will remain in a high state of alert for wildfires.
In a related development, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Friday expressed Athens’ gratitude to several European civil protection agencies and countries for providing assistance in the form of fire-fighters, vehicles and water-dropping planes this week.
He also thanked the EU’s civil protection mechanism (UCPM) and its upgraded agency, rescEU.
“(These agencies) … have once more proved their immense value in times of need,” he said, while also thanking several countries by name, such as Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, France, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Malta, Poland, Romania and Slovakia.
Finally, in the evening, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that his government will send two fire-fighting fixed winged planes and a water-dropping helicopter to combat the spate of wildfires in Greece.
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