Firefighters continued their battle against wildfires on the Greek island of Evia, which has been plagued by fire for a week now. One village after another in the north of the Greek island is being besieged by flames. Workers battled through the night — when there is no air support — to prevent the fire from reaching the town of Istiaia, according to Greek news agency ANA. And on Monday the fight continued on the island 200 km east of Athens. Greek Deputy Civil Protection Minister Nikos Hardalias had said on Sunday that "another difficult night" would be experienced on the island. Among the 500 firefighters deployed on the island are some 200 from Ukraine and Romania, reinforced by 17 water-bombing planes and helicopters, according to Greek firefighting services. But the airborne resources are experiencing "serious difficulties" due to turbulence, thick smoke and limited visibility, Hardalias said on Sunday. Giorgos Kelaïtzidis, the deputy governor of Evia, denounced, like many others, "insufficient" forces while "the situation is critical" on the island. According to him, at least 35,000 hectares and hundreds of houses have burned. While most of the fires in Greece were stabilized or in remission on Monday, the fire on Evia, Greece's second largest island, was the most worrying, offering an apocalyptic panorama. One by one, dozens of villages were evacuated of their inhabitants as the flames engulfed the first houses. The villages of Kamatriades and Galatsades were to be the priority for firefighters on Monday. "If the fire gets through there, it will be in a thick forest and difficult to extinguish," firefighters were quoted by ANA as saying. Greece has been experiencing a wave of violent fires for nearly two weeks, helped by drought and scorching temperatures, which have left two people dead and dozens injured in hospital. On the outskirts of Athens, the fire that destroyed dozens of homes and businesses had been in remission since Sunday but "the danger of a resurgence is high", Hardalias warned. A fire in Crete has been brought under control, while the situation has stabilized in the Peloponnese, authorities said. More than 56,000 hectares have been burnt in the past ten days in Greece, according to the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS). Some 1,700 hectares were burnt on average over the same period between 2008 and 2020. — Euronews
