Forest fires have reached the outskirts of Athens as strong gusts of wind fan flames across Greece, cutting off motorway and rail services.
Greece is one of the countries in the Mediterranean basin most affected by the exceptional heat wave and forest fires that have affected large areas of the northern hemisphere since the beginning of the boreal summer. Over the course of two weeks, the country has been affected by three consecutive heat waves. The fires have left four dead, two of them firefighters.
In the Hellenic country, the tourist islands of Rhodes, Corfu and Euboea were mainly affected by the fire, and since Wednesday also the Thessaly region, in the center.
This new front spread to an air force base in Nea Anjíalos, 19 km south of Volos, on Thursday afternoon, unleashing a series of large explosions at an ammunition warehouse, shattering the windows of the houses of the surroundings. The air force said the site, about 6 kilometers north of the airbase, had been evacuated well in advance and no injuries had been reported. The fire service also said no injuries had been reported in nearby towns, which had been evacuated as a precaution.
In Bulgaria, where the thermometer reached 42°C, authorities on Wednesday declared a state of emergency in the Haskovo region, near the northeastern border of Greece, due to a forest fire that was raging in the Rhodope mountain range. .
The Greek authorities maintain several areas in seven of the 13 regions in the country at “extreme risk of fire”, many of them in Thessaly, in central Greece. To combat this Thessaly front, firefighters, police and volunteers worked throughout the night on Wednesday, where four planes were also deployed, according to firefighters.
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