A resurgent wildfire burned homes north of Athens and blazes across southern Greece forced more evacuations Thursday as weather conditions worsened and firefighters in a round-the-clock battle fought to save a former royal palace and the birthplace of the ancient Olympics.
In a dramatic scene as flames approached, fire crews went house to house to escort residents out of homes some 20 kilometres north of the capital. The fire threatened the power supply to parts of the capital after damaging the transmission network, officials said.
A heat wave baking southeast Europe for a second week has also triggered deadly fires in Turkey and Albania and blazes across the region. “We are fighting some of the worst wildfires we've seen in decades. But this summer's floods, heatwaves and forest fires can become our new normality,” he wrote in a tweet.
Greece's Civil Protection Agency said the risk of fires across southern Greece would increase further Friday, with windy weather forecast for parts of the country, despite an expected slight dip in temperatures that reached 45 degrees Celsius earlier this week. The heat wave was described as Greece's worst since 1987.
The EU Atmosphere Monitoring Service said smoke plumes from the region's wildfires were clearly visible in satellite images, adding that the estimated intensity of the wildfires in Turkey was at the highest level since records started in 2003.
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