Skyros wildfire burns for second day in Greece

Firefighters battled a forest fire on the Greek Aegean island of Skyros for a second day on Sunday after the blaze prompted the evacuation of two small communities.

Skyros mayor Kyriakos Antonopoulos told state TV ERT that he believed the fire could be fully extinguished within the day. He said no inhabited areas were under threat on Sunday.

Reinforcements were sent to the island, which has about 3,000 residents, from neighbouring areas.

Greece has faced several major wildfires since late July, after largely escaping the heatwave temperatures that covered much of Europe earlier in the summer. The fires have been fuelled by unusually strong winds.

Five firefighters have died so far, including a Danish pilot killed in a mid-air collision between two Bell helicopters while fighting a blaze near Athens earlier this month.

Last week, about 500 tourists were evacuated from beaches on the Halkidiki peninsula in northern Greece as a forest fire threatened two popular resorts.

About 20,000 hectares of forest and agricultural land have burned this year in major fires near Athens and on the islands of Crete and Paros.

Greece is hit by wildfires every year. Experts say the risk is growing because human-fuelled climate change has made droughts and other extreme weather events more severe.