Wildfires rip through Greek islands and mainland as EU aid arrives
The fronts were raging this morning in the Peloponnese area west of the capital Athens, as well as on the islands of Evia and Kythera, with aircraft and helicopters resuming their work in several parts of the country at dawn.
Forecasters predicted the strong winds that have fanned the flames would die down on Sunday in most areas, but warned that Kythera continued to face 'worrying' windy conditions.
Evacuation messages were sent to people on the island, which lies off the south-eastern tip of the Peloponnese, early on Sunday as the fire was raging unabated.
'Houses, beehives, olive trees have been burnt,' Giorgos Komninos, deputy mayor of Kythera, told local outlet ERT News.
'A monastery is in direct danger right now,' he said, adding that half of the island had been burnt.
Advertisement
Firefighters try to extinguish a fire at house during a wildfire in the northwestern suburb of Kryoneri, in Athens.
Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
Dozens of firefighters supported by three helicopters and two aircraft were battling the Kythera blaze, which erupted Saturday morning and forced the evacuation of a popular tourist beach.
Greece had requested help from EU allies and two Italian aircraft were expected today, according to the fire brigade, with units from the Czech Republic already at work.
Heatwave conditions
Eleven regions of Greece still face a very high fire risk, according to officials.
Firefighters are working in several areas of the Peloponnese and there were several flare-ups overnight on the island of Evia, near Athens, where the flames have laid waste to swathes of forest and killed thousands of farm animals.
Further south on Crete, reports said fires that broke out on Saturday afternoon and destroyed four houses and a church and largely been contained.
Greece has endured heatwave conditions for almost a week, with temperatures passing 40 degrees Celsius in many areas, though the heat is expected to die down from Monday.
Climate change is pushing average temperatures upwards around the world as humans continue to pump greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere that trap heat near the Earth's surface.
Unsure of what exactly is happening with the earth's climate? Check out our FactCheck Knowledge Bank for essential reads and guides to finding good information online.
Visit Knowledge Bank
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Journal
9 hours ago
- The Journal
'I left everything behind me': Photos show devastation of wildfire that scorched southern France
FRENCH FIREFIGHTERS ARE working overtime to halt a major wildfire that has left one person dead and destroyed several thousand hectares of land. Thirteen people have been injured, two of them seriously, and dozens of homes have been destroyed since the blaze began in France's southern Aude department on Tuesday. Weather conditions have become more favourable, but firefighters warn that stronger winds are forecast for later today, and local temperatures are set to reach 32 degrees Celsius. French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou called it a 'catastrophe on an unprecedented scale'. Some 3,000 homes are still threatened by the fire, firefighters say, while around 1,000 people who had been evacuated in the area were not yet cleared to return home. 'I left everything behind me,' said David Cerdan, a 51-year-old who fled Saint-Laurent-de-la-Cabrerisse. Here's a look at how the fire has ravaged the region. Smoke rising near Marseille Alamy Alamy La Castellane district of Marseille Alamy Alamy Advertisement The fast-moving fire burning through the countryside Alamy Alamy A water bomber dropping water on the fire Alamy Alamy A forest ravaged by the fire Alamy Alamy A view of the fire from a Securité Civile plane Alamy Alamy A house near Durban-Corbieres completely burnt by the fire Alamy Alamy Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo Cars charred by the fire Alamy Alamy Journalists fiming the fire from afar yesterday Alamy Alamy With reporting by AFP Unsure of what exactly is happening with the earth's climate? Check out our FactCheck Knowledge Bank for essential reads and guides to finding good information online. Visit Knowledge Bank Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone... A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article. Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation. Learn More Support The Journal
The Journal
17 hours ago
- The Journal
World's third-hottest July on record wreaks climate havoc
THE THIRD-HOTTEST July worldwide has ended a string of record-breaking temperatures last month, but many regions were still devastated by extreme weather, the European climate monitoring service has said. Heavy rains flooded Pakistan and northern China; Canada, Scotland and Greece struggled to tame wildfires intensified by persistent drought; and many nations in Asia and Scandinavia recorded new average highs for the month. 'Two years after the hottest July on record, the recent streak of global temperature records is over,' Carlo Buontempo, director of the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service, said in a statement. 'But that does not mean climate change has stopped,' he said. 'We continue to witness the effects of a warming world.' In Ireland, July was the country's 12th hottest month on record, with temperatures surpassing 30 degrees in some areas. A misleading dip Worldwide, as in June, July showed a slight dip compared to the preceding two years, averaging 1.25 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial (1850-1900) era. 2023 and 2024 warmed above that benchmark by more than 1.5C, which is the Paris Agreement target set in 2015 for capping the rise in global temperatures at relatively safe levels. That deceptively small increase has been enough to make storms, heatwaves and other extreme weather events far more deadly and destructive. 'We continued to witness the effect of a warming world in events such as extreme heatwaves and catastrophic floods in July,' Buontempo said. Last month, temperatures exceeded 50C in the Gulf, Iraq and – for the first time – Turkey, while torrential rains killed hundreds of people in China and Pakistan. In Spain, more than a thousand deaths were attributed by a public institute to the heat in July, half as many as in the same period in 2024. Advertisement The main source of the CO2 driving up temperatures is well known: the burning of oil, coal and gas to generate energy. 'Unless we rapidly stabilise greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere, we should expect not only new temperature records but also a worsening of impacts,' Buontempo said. Regional contrasts Global average temperatures are calculated using billions of satellite and weather readings, both on land and at sea, and the data used by Copernicus extends back to 1940. Even if July was milder in some places than in previous years, 11 countries experienced their hottest July in at least a half-century, including China, Japan, North Korea, Tajikistan, Bhutan, Brunei and Malaysia, according to AFP calculations. In Europe, Nordic countries saw an unprecedented string of hot days, including more than 20 days above 30C across Finland. More than half of Europe along with the Mediterranean region experienced the worst drought conditions in the first part of July since monitoring began in 2012, according to an AFP analysis of data from the European Drought Observatory (EDO). In contrast, temperatures were below normal in North and South America, India and parts of Australia and Africa, as well as in Antarctica. Seas still overheating Last month was also the third-hottest July on record for sea surface temperatures. Locally, however, several ocean records for July were broken: in the Norwegian Sea, in parts of the North Sea, in the North Atlantic west of France and Britain. The extent of Arctic sea ice was 10% below average, the second lowest for a July in 47 years of satellite observations, virtually tied with the readings of 2012 and 2021. Diminishing sea ice is a concern not because it adds to sea levels, but because it replaces the snow and ice that reflect almost all the Sun's energy back into space with deep blue ocean, which absorbs it. Some 90% of the excess heat generated by global warming is absorbed by the oceans. In Antarctica, sea ice extent is the third lowest on record for this month.
RTÉ News
17 hours ago
- RTÉ News
Third-hottest July on record wreaks climate havoc
The third-hottest July worldwide ended a string of record-breaking temperatures last month, but many regions were still devastated by extreme weather amplified by global warming, the European climate monitoring service has said. Heavy rains flooded Pakistan and northern China; Canada, Scotland and Greece struggled to tame wildfires intensified by persistent drought; and many nations in Asia and Scandinavia recorded new average highs for the month. "Two years after the hottest July on record, the recent streak of global temperature records is over," Carlo Buontempo, director of the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service, said in a statement. "But that does not mean climate change has stopped," he said. "We continue to witness the effects of a warming world." A misleading dip As in June, July showed a slight dip compared to the preceding two years, averaging 1.25C above the pre-industrial (1850-1900) era. 2023 and 2024 warmed above that benchmark by more than 1.5C, which is the Paris Agreement target set in 2015 for capping the rise in global temperatures at relatively safe levels. That deceptively small increase has been enough to make storms, heatwaves and other extreme weather events far more deadly and destructive. "We continued to witness the effect of a warming world in events such as extreme heatwaves and catastrophic floods in July," Mr Buontempo said. Last month, temperatures exceeded 50C in the Gulf, Iraq and - for the first time - Turkey, while torrential rains killed hundreds of people in China and Pakistan. In Spain, more than 1,000 deaths were attributed by a public institute to the heat in July, half as many as in the same period in 2024. The main source of the CO2 driving up temperatures is well known: the burning of oil, coal and gas to generate energy. "Unless we rapidly stabilise greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere, we should expect not only new temperature records but also a worsening of impacts," Mr Buontempo said. Regional contrasts Global average temperatures are calculated using billions of satellite and weather readings, both on land and at sea, and the data used by Copernicus extends back to 1940. Even if July was milder in some places than in previous years, 11 countries experienced their hottest July in at least a half-century, including China, Japan, North Korea, Tajikistan, Bhutan, Brunei and Malaysia, according to AFP calculations. In Europe, Nordic countries saw an unprecedented string of hot days, including more than 20 days above 30C across Finland. More than half of Europe along with the Mediterranean region experienced the worst drought conditions in the first part of July since monitoring began in 2012, according to an AFP analysis of data from the European Drought Observatory (EDO). In contrast, temperatures were below normal in North and South America, India and parts of Australia and Africa, as well as in Antarctica. Seas still overheating Last month was also the third-hottest July on record for sea surface temperatures. Locally, however, several ocean records for July were broken: in the Norwegian Sea, in parts of the North Sea, in the North Atlantic west of France and Britain. The extent of Arctic sea ice was 10% below average, the second lowest for a July in 47 years of satellite observations, virtually tied with the readings of 2012 and 2021. Diminishing sea ice is a concern not because it adds to sea levels, but because it replaces the snow and ice that reflect almost all the Sun's energy back into space with deep blue ocean, which absorbs it. 90% of the excess heat generated by global warming is absorbed by the oceans. In Antarctica, sea ice extent is the third lowest on record for this month.
