Greece fires kill 3 as expert says megafire likely

Wildfires in Greece killed three firefighters and devastated more than 12,000 hectares of forest and agricultural land over a week, as a wildfire expert said the fire around Porto Germeno was likely to be classified as a megafire.

The National Observatory's climate tracker meteo.gr said early estimates indicated that more than 6,500 hectares had burned in separate fires on the Gulf of Corinth, including around Porto Germeno, a coastal village near Athens. Local authorities said scores of homes were damaged or destroyed after Porto Germeno and other villages were evacuated when the fire broke out on Friday.

Fires earlier in the week on Crete and Paros affected another 6,000 hectares, according to meteo.gr. Theodore Giannaros, a wildfire meteorologist and senior researcher at the National Observatory, said the fires around Porto Germeno appeared to have affected more than 10,000 hectares, almost double the original estimate. He said it was highly likely, if not almost certain, that the wildfire would be classified as a megafire.

Three firefighters died in the line of duty during the week: two in Crete and one in the Peloponnese.

Nearly 500 firefighters were battling blazes in the Porto Germeno area, about 70 kilometres northwest of Athens, the fire department said. About 100 firefighters were fighting another fire in Aigialia in the northern Peloponnese, and a new fire broke out late Saturday on the Ionian Sea island of Cephalonia.

Civil Protection Minister Evangelos Tournas said gale-force winds had created extremely difficult conditions for firefighting aircraft and that the fire department had been pushed to its limits. Although winds eased late Saturday, the greater Athens area, nearby Voiotia and the island of Evia were under near-maximum fire risk on Sunday, the civil protection ministry said.