{"id":12606,"date":"2025-07-04T18:04:05","date_gmt":"2025-07-04T18:04:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=12606"},"modified":"2025-07-04T18:04:05","modified_gmt":"2025-07-04T18:04:05","slug":"greek-firefighters-battle-fresh-blaze-near-athens-as-crete-fire-retreats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=12606","title":{"rendered":"Greek firefighters battle fresh blaze near Athens as Crete fire retreats"},"content":{"rendered":"
A wildfire on the island of Crete that forced the evacuation of 5,000 tourists and locals is “retreating”, Greek firefighters told AFP on Friday, but a new blaze fanned by strong winds is spreading east of the capital, Athens.<\/p>\n

Hot dry weather in Greece — not unusual for this time of year — has heightened the risk of summer wildfires, and scientists say human-driven climate change is making them more frequent and more intense.<\/p>\n

The new wildfire broke out at Koropi, a town some 30 kilometres (20 miles) east of Athens, where residents received text messages from civil protection units urging them to evacuate the vicinity.<\/p>\n

That fire “has reached the courtyards of the houses”, Koropi mayor Dimitris Kiousis told public television channel ERT.<\/p>\n

“The fire is ongoing. All residents (in threatened areas) have been evacuated,” Thodoris Grivas, deputy mayor of Koropi, told ERT.<\/p>\n

“We do not yet know the extent of the disaster,” Grivas added.<\/p>\n

A fire department official later told AFP that the situation appeared “improved”. “There remain some scattered clusters,” he added.<\/p>\n

In all, 120 firefighters were at the scene, with 30 engines, eight planes and the same number of helicopters, fire service spokesman Vassilis Vathrakoyannis told reporters.<\/p>\n

A coastguard vessel was patrolling nearby.<\/p>\n

Concerns remain for the coming days, particularly Saturday. when temperatures are due to rise, with the risk of fire still high.<\/p>\n

Temperatures are forecast to reach up to 43 degrees Celsius (109 Fahrenheit) in some areas of the country, according to the EMY weather agency.<\/p>\n

Greece had until now been generally spared the heatwave roasting parts of Europe, particularly Spain, Portugal and France over recent days.<\/p>\n

Early on Friday afternoon, at least two water bombers and two helicopters were battling flames fanned by strong winds blowing across Attica, the Athens region, and the capital itself.<\/p>\n

The fire was destroying olive trees and brushwood, ERT images showed.<\/p>\n

Firefighters earlier managed to bring under control a separate fire which had on Thursday threatened the port of Rafina, around 20 kilometres northeast of Koropi, after some 300 local people were evacuated from their homes.<\/p>\n

Fire crews remained on alert, as the Rafina wildfire was not far from Athens International Airport and winds still posed a threat.<\/p>\n

The blaze destroyed a several houses and vehicles, local mayor Dimitris Markou told ERT.<\/p>\n

It also disrupted ferries to and from tourist islands in the western Aegean, including Mykonos.<\/p>\n

On the island of Crete, around 230 firefighters, 48 fire engines and six helicopters remained at the scene near the resort town of Ierapetra, even though the blaze was receding.<\/p>\n

Some 3,000 visitors had been forced to leave their hotels and guest houses on Wednesday evening and 2,000 local residents were also evacuated, authorities said.<\/p>\n

“The fire is retreating,” Vathrakoyannis told AFP.<\/p>\n

“There are still fears of flare-ups but there is no longer a major front,” he added.<\/p>\n

Scattered hot spots still remained and firefighters were dealing with several smoke-filled areas from which flare-ups had restarted, the fire department told the ANA press agency.<\/p>\n

Weakening winds in the hard-to-reach area had improved the situation, firefighters said, although a fire brigade spokesperson had warned overnight of some “difficult” days ahead.<\/p>\n

Last month, fires on Greece’s fifth-biggest island Chios, in the northern Aegean, destroyed 4,700 hectares (11,600 acres) of land, according to the WWF and the National Observatory of Athens research institute.<\/p>\n

The most destructive year for wildfires was 2023, when nearly 175,000 hectares were lost and there were 20 deaths.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A wildfire on the island of Crete that forced the evacuation of 5,000 tourists and locals is “retreating”, Greek firefighters told AFP on Friday, but a new blaze fanned by strong winds is spreading east of the capital, Athens. Hot dry weather in Greece — not unusual for this time of year — has heightened […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12606\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}