Wildfire in northern Greece continues for the 11th day despite firefighting efforts

For 11 consecutive days, there has been an extensive fire raging in northeastern Greece. Even though lots of firefighters and planes have been trying to stop it, the fire keeps going without getting any weaker.

After burning through large areas of land, the fire in the Alexandroupolis and Evros region focused mainly on a forest close to the border with Turkey. This forest is hard to reach.

The wildfire in Greece last week was the largest in the EU since they started keeping records in 2000. It caused 20 out of the 21 deaths related to wildfires.

The fire department said that there were six planes and four helicopters helping 475 firefighters on the ground. They also had 100 vehicles supporting them. An additional 260 firefighters and a helicopter were fighting smaller fires that had started from a big fire in a forest on the southern part of Mount Parnitha, near the outskirts of Athens.

Officials are looking into why the fires destroyed a lot of forest, burnt houses, and made many people leave their homes.

In Athens, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis led a government meeting to discuss ways to restore the damaged forests in Evros and Parnitha. It planned to locate all the places that had been burnt and need new trees. It also decided to take steps to avoid flooding later on. Additionally, it wanted to make sure that the animals living in the area have enough food and water.

Greece asked for help from other European countries because their firefighters are very busy. Europe sent 12 planes and many firefighters to assist Greece.

France and Spain are sending more airplanes to join the ones from Germany, Sweden, Croatia, Cyprus, and the Czech Republic as part of the EU’s emergency response system.

Over 350 firefighters from different countries, including Romania, France, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Albania, Slovakia, and Serbia, were sent to Greece.

The person in charge of handling crises in the European Union, Janez Lenarcic, said on Tuesday that this was the biggest firefighting mission ever done by the EU. It shows that we are determined to act quickly and effectively together during times of crisis.

The Alexandroupolis and Evros wildfire started on August. According to the European Union’s Copernicus Emergency Management Service, a fire that occurred when a person was 19 years old has burned over 81,000 hectares (200,000 acres) of land. Copernicus is a part of the EU space program that looks at Earth and provides information using pictures from satellites.

The European Commission said on Tuesday that it is the biggest and most serious fire in Europe since 2000.

In Greece, firefighters were fighting against 74 wildfires on Monday. Out of these, 27 started between Sunday evening and Monday evening.

Officials believe that some of the fires were intentionally started, and a few individuals have been taken into custody.

Greece makes rules to prevent wildfires. These rules are in place from May to October. They say that people can’t burn dry plants or use outdoor grills.

As of Friday, the fire department arrested a total of 163 people for fire-related offenses. Out of those, 118 were charged with negligence and 24 with intentional arson. This information was shared by government spokesperson Pavlos Marinakis. The police arrested 18 more people, he said.