As Greece fought to contain a fast-moving wildfire crisis, two fire helicopters collided west of Athens, underscoring Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’s warning that the country faces “extremely difficult” days ahead.
The hired Bell helicopters crashed while tackling a blaze in the Psatha area, the fire service said.
“Search and rescue teams were immediately mobilised to locate and assist the crews,” it said.
State broadcaster ERT reported that one crewmember had been found safe, while rescuers were searching for the second.
Television footage showed one helicopter exploding and plunging to the ground in flames after what appeared to be a rotor collision.
Mr Mitsotakis had earlier pointed to “extreme weather conditions” and winds that had reached 100 kilometres an hour.
“When the winds blow with such force, even the dozens of aircraft we have at our disposal cannot operate safely,” he wrote on Facebook.
On the ground, the fire department said nearly 500 firefighters were deployed around Porto Germeno, a popular coastal village about 70 kilometres northwest of Athens.
Crews were trying to stop the flames from pushing toward the western outskirts of the capital after the fire climbed a mountain overnight.
Elsewhere, around 100 firefighters were battling a separate blaze in Aigialia in the northern Peloponnese.
Late yesterday, another fire broke out on the Ionian Sea island of Cephalonia, one of Greece’s well-known holiday destinations.
Nearly 500 firefighters were battling blazes around the popular coastal village
A 44-year-old man was arrested Sunday in Cephalonia on suspicion of deliberately starting the fire, according to the Greek news agency ANA.
The National Observatory’s climate tracker meteo.gr said early estimates suggested more than 6,500 hectares had burned in separate fires on the Gulf of Corinth, including the one that also swept through Porto Germeno.
It said conditions remained unfavourable, “mainly due to strong northerly winds, which, however, have partially weakened compared to previous days”.
‘Is anyone there?’
Porto Germeno and other villages were ordered to evacuate when the fire erupted on Friday, and local authorities say scores of homes were damaged or destroyed.
“We could not believe what we were seeing, the fire spread extremely rapidly,” Nikos Georgopoulos from the laboratory of forest management at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, told state TV channel ERT.
Video released by Greek police showed officers moving door to door in Agios Nektarios, near Porto Germeno, as the wildfire closed in.
Riding motorcycles, officers sounded sirens and rapped on doors, calling out: “Is anyone there?”
Photos and footage from the area showed firefighters working through heavy smoke and high flames, joined by volunteers helping to contain the blaze.
A firefighting helicopter battles a wildfire burning near Porto Germeno
Minas Tsotdanis, a farmer whose home was destroyed, said more than a dozen houses in the village had been reduced to ruins.
“Even if my home had been spared, all I would see would be this: a burned forest,” he said, watching the fire with anxiety.
‘Megafire’
Earlier this week, meteo.gr said fires on the islands of Crete and Paros burned another 6,000 hectares.
Theodore Giannaros, a wildfire meteorologist and senior researcher at the National Observatory, said the Porto Germeno fires appeared to have scorched more than 10,000 hectares — almost twice the initial estimate.
“It is highly likely (if not almost certain) that this particular wildfire will be classified as a megafire,” Mr Giannaros wrote on Facebook.
Firefighters have been confronting dozens of fires each day, and Civil Protection Minister Evangelos Tournas said on Saturday that the fire service had been “pushed to its limits”.
Three firefighters have died in the line of duty in recent days — two in Crete and one in the Peloponnese.
Mr Tournas said gale-force winds had created “extremely difficult conditions resulting in many cases where aircraft either cannot draw water or cannot carry out drops due to extreme turbulence”.
Although winds eased late yesterday, the civil protection ministry said the greater Athens area, nearby Voiotia and the island of Evia were under near-maximum fire risk today.
Like much of the Mediterranean, Greece has been hit hard by the climate crisis and faces recurring summer wildfires driven by high temperatures, frequent heat waves and drought.
