Athens, Greece. Greece battled wildfires on multiple fronts on Friday, including near Athens, in central Greece and on Crete, as France and Spain saw some respite after bringing major blazes under control.
Europe has been hit by wildfires following successive record-breaking heatwaves, with drought-parched vegetation helping fires spread and forcing hundreds of thousands of people to leave their homes.
Evacuations near Athens
Residents of two communities west of Athens were advised to evacuate as a precaution as smoke rose from densely wooded hills surrounding the Greek capital. Authorities deployed water-bombing aircraft to fight the blaze.
In Boeotia, north-west of Athens, hundreds of residents and visitors were evacuated from a small coastal community by coast guard boats and fishing vessels as thick orange smoke covered the area.
Images showed olive-tree-covered hills on fire. As night fell, flames were visible on inaccessible hills above Porto Germeno, a seaside village popular with Athenians, where residents were advised to leave.
“The winds have died down, that might be the good news of the day. The intensity of the fire seems to have gone down a bit, but it’s still a big, uncontrolled front,” Georgios Dasiotis, vice prefect of Boeotia prefecture, told Greece’s SKAI TV.
Dasiotis said much of the fire was in an inaccessible area.
High fire risk
More than 70 fires broke out across Greece on Friday. The Greek fire brigade said it was at its maximum level of alert and warned that the risk was particularly high in the Attica peninsula, where Athens is located, and on Evia, an island east of Athens where fires are frequent.
Returns in southwestern France
In southwestern France, authorities began allowing people to return home after declaring that a major wildfire that had burned for more than a week was contained.
Evacuation orders were lifted in 12 districts west and south-west of Bordeaux, allowing 144,000 of more than 220,000 displaced people to return, Gironde prefect Sophie Brocas said in a statement.