Heatwave in Europe: fires in Greece, Turkey, Italy and Spain | In some towns, they evacuated the entire population

Nail Heat wave in the northern hemisphere caused a series of fires in southern Europe, the most affected areas being the northwest of the Peloponnese peninsula: Greece, South Turkey e Italy and a tourist center near Madrid, in Spain.

In Greece, reported the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), the hectares affected by the fire were 13,511. “The disaster is immense,” said Dimitris Kalogeropoulos, mayor of Aigialeias, one of the villages close to the fire on the Peloponnese peninsula.

This region, which lives mainly from agriculture, is one of the most affected by the heatwave that has hit Greece since Friday, with temperatures reaching 44 degrees.

Although there are still no official figures on the damage caused, according to the press, the fire has consumed entire olive groves in the town of Ziria. There, eight people had to be hospitalized with breathing problems and burns, according to the civil protection services.

“We slept outside, terrified that when we woke up we wouldn’t have a home anymore!” A resident of Labiri village told Skai Greek television.

In the coastal town of Loggos, the promenade had to be evacuated and the local police had to transfer around 100 residents and tourists to the port of Aigio, a few kilometers away.

Early Sunday morning, nearly 300 firefighters, along with 77 trucks, two water bombers and five helicopters, were still fighting to put out the flames. “The current situation is better than that of Saturday” and the firefighters have managed to save “a hundred properties”, said the Minister of Citizen Protection, Michalis Chryssochoïdis, who went to the scene to assess the damage.

Although most light bulbs manage to go out quickly, 58 forest fires have been reported in the Peloponnese since Saturday, caused by heatwaves and dry forests. A few days ago, a fire ravaged Mount Penteli, near Athens.

In Turkey, a district of the seaside resort of Bodrum was evacuated by a strong wind which fuels the flames of the neighboring district of Milas. Some 540 residents had to be transferred to hotels by boatCNN reported, which showed footage offered by the Turkish Defense Ministry with large areas of forest blackened and still smoking.

Turkey is experiencing the worst fires in the past decade, with nearly 95,000 hectares burned this year, while the average between 2008 and 2020 at that time was 13,516 hectares.

In Italy, they managed to control more than 800 fires in just 24 hours, after the heatwave, with temperatures also exceeding 40 degrees, caused droughts in the south of the country. The most affected cities were Bari, Catania and Palermo.

“In the last 24 hours, firefighters (planes that throw water) have carried out more than 800 interventions: 250 in Sicily, 130 in Puglia and Calabria, 90 in Lazio and 70 in Campania”, indicated Italian firefighters on their Twitter account. “The work of the teams continues in Catania, Palermo and in the Syracuse region,” they detailed.

This weekend, moreover, more than 20,000 hectares of forests and olive trees were destroyed by fire in Oristano, on the island of Sardinia.

While, northern Italy records heavy storms with hail. As reported this Sunday the National Confederation of Farmers, Coldiretti, “in Lombardy, in the region of Como, in the Lario, in the region of Lenno, there are crop losses of up to 80% in the olive groves of enterprises “.

“This is just the last chapter of a summer so far marked by 789 extreme events that include tornadoes, hailstorms and severe storms across the peninsula,” the Confederation said.

In SpainMeanwhile, dozens of firefighters backed by hydrant planes battled a blaze that started on Saturday afternoon near the San Juan reservoir, 70 kilometers east of Madrid, a very popular place among the locals.

Although the firefighters indicated that the fire was under control at night, the local authorities asked the population not to approach the scene since a total of 50 hectares were affected.