A firefighting plane smashed into a hillside on a southern Greek island Monday, killing both crew members, as the country struggles to contain wildfires amid sweltering heat, AP reported. Another firefighting plane crashed Monday in central Italy, which is also struggling against wildfires fanned by soaring temperatures and persistent winds. One of the Canadair plane's crew died and the other was seriously injured when the plane went down in Italy's central Abruzzo region, the country's Civil Protection Department said. In Greece, the CL-415 tanker was flying through thick smoke to douse a fire outside the resort of Stira, on Evia island, when it crashed, sending wreckage across an area over 100 meters (yards). «From accounts we heard from witnesses, the plane flew very low to make its drop and then couldn't gain enough height in time,» Stira Mayor Sofia Moutsou said. «They saved our village, but it cost them their lives.» The plane's crew members were aged 27 and 34, the Air Force said. The fire on Evia burned several homes and forced the evacuation of hundreds of residents. Amid successive heat waves, more than 2,000 fires have broken out in Greece since June. With Monday's temperatures reaching 42 degrees Celsius (107 Fahrenheit) in parts of the country, an elderly man died of heat stroke on the island of Corfu, and 13 others were hospitalized elsewhere in Greece, officials said.
