Kikilias: Investigators looking into 15 simultaneous fire breakouts in Evros Region

The Fire Brigade has been called in to manage 355 forest fires from Friday to Tuesday, Climate Crisis and Civil Protection Minister Vassilis Kikilias said on Wednesday.

In a briefing on the fires in Greece, he added that 209 fires broke out in the last 48 hours. “Indicative of the extremely difficult situatiion we are facing is that along with the huge fire in Evros on Tuesday, the Fire Brigade was called in for 9 highly dangerous fires in Attica, 6 in Viotia (Boeotia), and 1 in Evia.”

Referring to Attica Region in particular, Kikilias said that at 09:00 on Tuesday firefighting means in the air had worked on 5 fires: 3 consecutive ones in Aspropyrgos, Elefsina, and Thriassio (all west of Athens), while water-dropping aircraft reached the first fire on Mt. Parnitha within 4 to 5 minutes. The aircraft were diverted to the first fire there, which broke out near the Kleista Monastery at 12:00, but the fire spread fast due to strong winds and the terrain’s particularities.

This year (2023), he said, is the worst of all summers since the meteorological data began being recorded and the fire threat alerts have been first issued, “an unprecedented situation.” He added that “Seven times this summer several large regions of Greece were placed under the highest alert (5). This is twice as many times as in 2021, four times as many as in 2019 and seven times as many as in 2012.”

Speaking of the fire in Evros, NE Greece, he called it a “mega fire”, with 15 concurrent fire pockets, while the area of the protected forest of Dadia faced extreme conditions due to extensive drought and strong winds, creating a huge fire front that could not be brought under control.

Kikilias also expressed his regret over the death of 18 individuals whose charred bodies were found at Dadia Forest, underlining the importance of the messages by the emergency alert number 112 that were sent to Greeks and foreigners in the area, and the high alert for fire threat the forest was placed under (4).

He said that the linear plotting of fire pockets from Dadia to Alexandroupolis, with 15 fires in the same imaginary line, has already been registered by the Fire Department. A special Fire Brigade team on crimes of arson and the Greek police as well as the National Intelligence Service are investigating the causes of the fire. The Supreme Court has also called on regional authorities to investigate the causes of fire.

Fire Brigade, Hellenic Police officers provide updates on firefighting efforts, evacuations at briefing

The fires that broke out in Greece this summer did not lose strength at night, burning as strongly because of high-velocity winds and straining resources, the chief of the Fire Brigade, Lieutenant General Georgios Pournaras, said at a briefing at the Climate Crisis and Civil Protection Ministry on Wednesday.

“In my 32 years at the Fire Brigade, I have never experienced similar extreme conditions,” he said, noting that wind velocity did not drop below 6 or 7 on the Beaufort scale, with gusts of winds reaching as high as 8, unlike previous years’ experiences. “In other years, fires were manageable at night during previous years, but not it is hard to manage them. The Fire Brigade is one of the few services Europe-wide that can and continues to operate even at night,” with firefighters exceeding their physical and emotional limits, he added.

Major general Georgios Michalopoulos, head of the Hellenic Police’s Division of Public Order, provided information on the number of actions Greek police undertook during the fires in the last few days.

In Alexandropoulis, Evros Region, 1,560 police officers evacuated preventatively 14,316 residents of 33 communities and rescued 76 animals. In West Attica, 744 police officers rescued 188 people and 100 animals, while they also evacuated preventatively residents of 6 communities. At the same time, police is patrolling evacuated areas to prevent break-ins and theft.