Major wildfire fronts continue in extreme NE Greece

Firefighters in Greece continued to battle against wildfire flare-ups in the extreme northeast Evros and Rhodope prefectures on Monday. The former blaze has been raging for more than a week.

A total of 474 fire-fighters are fighting the blazes on the ground, while more than 100 vehicles are active on both fronts, along with a half dozen water-dropping aircraft.

A fire brigade spokesman added that wildfires in south-central Greece and around the greater Athens area were nearly extinguished.

The assistance provided by the EU emergency framework so far is more than 350 fire-fighters, 50 vehicles and 12 aircraft, according to Balazs Ujvari, the EU Commission’s spokesperson for Budget and Human Resources, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management, who tweeted that the forces are “helping to battle the flames across Greece… While the summer season is slowly coming to an end, wildfires continue to rage across the continent.”