Today, with the support of the army, more than 270 firefighters have been deployed with the support of 16 aircraft. Firefighters remain wary of the potential for a fire to resume in these mountains, despite improved weather conditions on Friday, leaving the main front of the flame under control last night while “several isolated active fires” remain in Gerania.
“This is one of the biggest fires in the last 20 or 30 years, occurring this month at the very beginning of the season,” Fire Chief Stefanos Kolokuris told ANT1 station.
The Greek Civil Protection Service has assured that an assessment of the extent of damage will be carried out as soon as the fire is considered fully controlled, at a stage when no casualties have yet been reported, and only a dozen houses have been damaged.
The press reports that the damage caused by the flames is already significant.
According to Eutymios Lekkas, professor of environmental disaster management at the University of Athens, after the summer it is “a huge environmental disaster that will require work to prevent landslides and dire floods.”
“As a result of the fire, more than 55 square kilometers of pine forest were burned,” said a specialist at the public broadcaster ERT.
Animal welfare in this habitat is currently one of the biggest concerns as birds, turtles, dogs, cats, hedgehogs or wild boars are completely charred. On the spot, volunteers from animal rights groups try to help and provide water and food.
Greek non-governmental organization (NGO) ANIMA said it was particularly “worried” about a fire in mid-spring, “when the animals had just given birth to their young.” “Newborns find it difficult to run or fly on their own when they are adults,” the association explained on social media.
WWF launched a petition under the slogan “The fight for prevention today will save our forests tomorrow”, demanding “the state to take serious measures to prevent forest fires,” and managed to collect 3,300 signatures in a few hours. Proposals include the development of missing forest maps, a more effective solution to the problem of waste incineration in certain areas and the development of a national action plan.
Greece faces severe wildfires every year, caused by drought, high winds and temperatures often exceeding 30 degrees.
