Greek Mega-Fire Spreads, Forcing Evacuations in Its Path

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(Bloomberg) — A massive fire in Greece spread deeper into the country’s Attica region overnight and into Sunday, fanned by strong winds and forcing evacuations of villages and communities in its path.

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Around 500 firefighters — including 46 volunteers from France and Romania — are tackling the blaze that started Friday in the Viotia area of southern central Greece. Flames moved Saturday into the neighboring Attica region, which is home to the capital Athens and almost four million people.

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By Sunday, the fire had spread further northeast and south, coming within a few kilometers of the town of Megara after reaching Porto Germeno, a popular coastal village on the Gulf of Corinth, overnight Friday into Saturday.

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Almost 30 planes and helicopters are trying to assist ground forces, but extreme turbulence resulting from strong winds is preventing the aircraft from picking up water from the sea to help tackle the flames from the sky, the fire department said.

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Scorching 10,000 hectares (24,710 acres) of land, it’s the largest of several fires burning in the country, which regularly faces flare-ups during the hot summer season. Tourists were evacuated from hotels in Cephalonia, an island in western Greece, after a blaze spread there overnight.

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An investigation into the origin of the fire in Viotia points to negligence, the fire department said on Sunday.

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Early findings suggest that sparks emanated from cables feeding wind-generated energy from a privately operated network into the grid, it said. “After reaching the ground, the sparks ignited a fire, which took on large dimensions and spread from Viotia to Attica,” officials said. Two Greeks – an electrical engineer who signed off on the wind farm’s design and supervision, and a contractor who helped build the transmission network – have been arrested, they said.

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The conflagrations in Greece are the latest in what’s been a volatile wildfire season in Europe, which started early and picked up quickly. Four consecutive heat waves and worsening drought transformed landscapes into kindling and forced more than 300,000 people to evacuate across the continent, with dramatic scenes emerging in France and Spain last week as blazes threatened the cities of Bordeaux and Madrid.

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“In recent years, we have invested more than ever in strengthening civil protection, acquiring more aerial and ground assets, utilizing new technologies, hiring personnel and better organizing the state apparatus,” Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said in a Facebook post on Sunday. “However, there are times when the nature and intensity of weather phenomena exceed all human planning and all operational capabilities.”

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—With assistance from Anand Mammen Katakam.

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