‘Ecological catastrophe’ feared as Greece battles forest fire

A full lot of firefighters battled Greece’s first predominant forest fire of the summer season on Saturday, as experts warned of a “gargantuan ecological catastrophe” within the nature conservation enviornment reach Athens.

The fire, which broke out slack Wednesday within the Geraneia mountains some 90 kilometres (55 miles) west of the capital, is “one of the most ideal within the previous 20 to 30 years, and has come early within the season,” fire chief Stefanos Kolokouris told ANT1 television.

He said better weather prerequisites allowed firefighters to bring the major front of the outbreak below preserve watch over slack on Friday, but there remain “several active and scattered” blazes.

The ANA nationwide news agency quoted Kolokouris as forecasting that “the anxiousness would per chance be entirely below preserve watch over by the next day.”

Authorities ministers were due within the Gulf of Corinth enviornment Sunday to assess with native officers the extent of the injury and focus on monetary lend a hand.

Larger than 270 firefighters, backed by 16 airplane and by the navy, were combating the blazes.

No accidents were reported, but a different of properties were damaged or destroyed and a dozen villages and hamlets evacuated.

The size of the injury, particularly for farmers, will easiest be decided once the fire is entirely below preserve watch over, the civil safety agency said.

But experts and associations quoted in Greek media occupy warned of an “ecological catastrophe on an huge scale”.

Some 54 percent of the dense and hitherto stable pine forests were burnt, the leftist Avghi daily said. And 6.1 percent of the mountain differ is fragment of the European Union’s Natura 2000 community of nature conservation sites.

Euthymios Lekkas, professor of environmental catastrophe administration on the University of Athens, said the fires occupy burnt higher than 55 square kilometres (21 square miles) of pine forest and other land, a pair of of it agricultural.

“It’s a huge ecological catastrophe that wants work to e-book clear of landslides and terrible flooding within the autumn,” he told ERT public television.

The civil safety agency said the blaze started reach the village of Schinos next to the resort of Loutraki, it seems to be to be by somebody burning vegetation in an olive grove.

Tortoises and hedgehogs

Smoke from the fire choked Athens with ash falling from the sky.

Rescue associations sought Friday to lend a hand injured animals, burned or dehydrated from the fires, bringing food, water and first lend a hand.

One organisation, Caesar’s Paradise, said birds, tortoises, hedgehogs and wild boar to boot to cats and canines had been stumbled on tiresome from the smoke and flames.

The Greek NGO ANIMA said it became particularly concerned for the explanation that fires erupted “within the spring, when animals give start to their younger”.

“It’s advanced for newborns to hotfoot or to flit with their very uncover wings treasure adults,” the organisation said on social media.

The WWF launched a petition calling on the federal government to take “serious prevention measures against forest fires”.

Greece faces violent forest fires each summer season, fanned by dry weather, solid winds and temperatures that on the entire soar well above 30 C (86 F).

These might per chance well very well be of natural origin, or prison, with a see to valid property speculation, or ensuing from negligence.

In 2018, 102 of us died within the coastal resort of Mati, reach Athens, in Greece’s worst-ever fire catastrophe.

© 2021 AFP