Brit hotspots are burning: Three are killed as wildfires tear through Greek Islands, Spain, Portugal and the Balkans as heatwaves hell continues

Daily Mail​

19 hours ago

Deadly wildfires which have claimed the lives of at least three people have spread across several British tourist hotspots forcing thousands of evacuations as a scorching heatwave continues to tear through Europe.
Sunseekers have been fleeing Greece 's Zakynthos and Kefalonia islands 'by the minute' as raging infernos continue to rip through the Med.
A British bar worker on Zakynthos told Sky News he joined emergency services and locals to help combat a 'shocking' fire near a popular tourist resort.
Since dawn on Wednesday, 4,850 firefighters backed by the army and 33 planes were mobilised across Greece on what promised to be 'a very difficult day', fire service spokesman Vassilis Vathrakogiannis said.
In popular party-resort Laganas, officials ordered young Brit revellers to leave hotels as a 'precautionary measure' after the fires shot clouds of black smoke over the area.
'It's a cocktail of high temperatures, strong winds... and minimal humidity,' the head of civil protection for Western Greece, Nikos Gyftakis, told public broadcaster ERT.
One local official spoke of 'an unending nightmare' as a blaze near the ancient Mycenaean archaeological site of Voudeni, just four miles from Patras, Greece's third-largest city, threatened forested zones and homes, while 7,700 people were evacuated from a nearby town.
Meanwhile, some 15 firefighters were injured overnight while hundreds of locals and tourists are being treated for respiratory problems in hospital.
Fire brigade spokesperson, Vasillis Vathrakogiannis said: 'It will be another very difficult day, as the wildfire risk for most of the country's regions will be very high.'
In a scene he likened to 'doomsday', Giorgos Karavanis, a volunteer firefighter said: 'We came from Athens with our volunteer association Kleisthenis, we can't do anything more.
He added: 'May God help us and help people here.'
Officials evacuated 12 children from a Patras hospital, Vathrakogiannis said. Eighty elderly people were removed from a retirement home, and local media footage showed the roof of a nearby 17th-century monastery ablaze.
Meanwhile, in the western Achaia region in the Peloponnese, to which the coastal city of Patras belongs, around 20 villages were evacuated on Tuesday.
Other fronts were burning on the popular tourist island of Zante and the Aegean island of Chios, scarred by a huge wildfire in June that ravaged more than 4,000 hectares.
The Greek coastguard said it had helped evacuate nearly 80 people from Chios and near Patras.
The national ambulance service reported 52 hospitalisations from Achaia, Chios and the western town of Preveza, including 'a small number of firefighters', mostly for respiratory problems and minor burns.
After Greece requested four water bombers from the EU Civil Protection Mechanism to bolster its resources, leftist opposition party Syriza criticised the conservative government's preparation for the fires that hit every year.
Greece needed 'a bold redistribution of resources in favour of civil protection', an 'emphasis on prevention', better coordination and new technologies in its civil protection system, Syriza said.
Earlier this week, the Keratea region, south of Athens was decimated by raging wildfires with up to 16,000 acres of land decimated.
An elderly man was found dead inside his bed by firefighters who have been tirelessly battling against the numerous blazes.
More than 260 firefighters with nearly 80 fire engines along with 12 aircraft were deployed near Keratea.
Dimitris Loukas, mayor of the city of nearby Lavrio, said the Keratea fire destroyed dozens of homes, agriculture and forest land.
Meanwhile, last month on the island of Kythera, authorities evacuated the villages of Aroniadika, Pitsinades and Aryoi.
In the area of Messinia, west of Athens, residents of the Kryoneri and Sellas villages were also told to leave.
It comes as Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, the Balkans and Britain have this week wilted in high temperatures that fuel wildfires and which scientists say human-induced climate change is intensifying.
Wildfires have continued to rip through Spain, where cooler temperatures and greater humidity were expected to help control blazes in which two people have died.
Authorities in the northwestern region of Castile and Leon, where flames have threatened a world heritage Roman mining site, said almost 6,000 people from 26 localities had been evacuated from their homes.
Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said late Wednesday that Spain had asked the European Union for help, including the deployment of two water-bombing planes.
He urged European partners to deploy the planes quickly given 'weather forecasts' that could worsen the blazes, telling broadcaster Cadena Ser radio that Spain would also request firefighter deployments if necessary.
Bushy undergrowth and searing temperatures that have baked Spain for almost two weeks had created 'the worst possible breeding ground for this situation', Castile and Leon's civil protection head Irene Cortes said.
Madrid was hit by fireballs on Monday night as a hellish blaze fuelled by strong winds burned several houses in the capital's suburbs.
At least 180 people were evacuated overnight from Tres Cantos, an affluent suburb northeast of Madrid, after wildfires tore through homes and farmland.
A farmer who had been taken by helicopter to the La Paz hospital after suffering burns on 98 percent of his body, later died, the Community of Madrid confirmed on Tuesday.
He reportedly sustained his injuries while trying to rescue 27 horses, who were also killed in the blaze.
Spanish authorities said today a 35-year-old volunteer firefighter died on Tuesday while trying to extinguish a wildfire.
Kings College, a prestigious British private school, is also understood to have suffered some damage, and a donkey shelter burned down.
Due to the speed of winds, the flames quickly spread and reached the Norman pharmaceutical laboratories, where sounds of explosions were reportedly heard.
'In barely 40 minutes, the fire advanced six kilometres,' Carlos Novillo, Madrid's regional environment chief, told reporters.
The inferno then spread to the adjacent affluent suburbs of Fuente del Fresno and Soto de Viñuelas, where residents remained on evacuation alerts overnight.
Footage shared on social media showed how flames spread through forested areas, while thick smoke billowed into the sky.
Other videos showed how strong winds pushed blazes across fields as fire services rushed to contain the inferno.
Firefighters managed to contain the wildfire near the Spanish capital by Tuesday morning thanks to favourable overnight conditions, regional authorities said.
A total of 199 wildfires have scorched nearly 98,784 hectares across Spain this year, more than double the area burned during the same period in 2024.
Neighbouring Portugal deployed more than 2,100 firefighters and 20 aircraft against five major blazes, with efforts focused on a fire in the central municipality of Trancoso that has raged since Saturday.
Strong gusts of wind had rekindled flames overnight and threatened nearby villages, where television images showed locals volunteering to help firefighters under a thick cloud of smoke.
'It's scary... but we are always ready to help each other,' a mask-wearing farmer told Sic Noticias television, holding a spade in his hand.
A separate fire in a mountainous zone of Arganil in central Portugal smothered several villages with smoke, prompting the evacuation of elderly residents in particular.
Italian firefighters had also extinguished a blaze that burned for five days on the famed Mount Vesuvius and spewed plumes of smoke over the Naples area.
In the Balkans, dozens of blazes stretched emergency services in the Balkans, where a severe drought and a prolonged heatwave have exacerbated the region's traditional fire season.
An 80-year-old man died in Albania late Tuesday after he lost control of a fire he had started in his garden. The blaze quickly spread to neighbouring homes, injuring eight people.
An Italian Canadair CL-415 aircraft flies over a wildfire near the town of Delvine, southeast Albania on August 13, 2025
Authorities have evacuated residents in parts of central and southern Albania, but easing weather conditions in neighbouring Montenegro helped firefighters protect homes.
The country mourned a soldier who died in a water truck overturn near the capital Podgorica on Tuesday, with the defence ministry speaking of a 'heavy loss'.
In Britain, temperatures were expected to peak at 34C in the country's fourth heatwave of the summer.
The UK Health Security Agency warned of 'significant impacts' on health and social care services for the parts of central and southeastern England where the harshest heat was forecast.