Greece’s ‘out of control’ wildfire is ‘largest ever recorded in EU’

Greece’s fire service said that a blaze raging across a nearly 10-kilometre front north of the city of Alexandroupoli ‘is still out of control’

The bloc said it is mobilising nearly half its firefighting air wing to tackle the blaze, a European Commission spokesman said

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Firefighters and volunteers work to extinguish a wild fire near the village of Dikella, west of Alexandroupolis, Greece, on August 22. Photo: Bloomberg

Published: 8:09pm, 29 Aug 2023

A forest blaze in Greece is “the largest wildfire ever recorded in the EU” and the bloc is mobilising nearly half its firefighting air wing to tackle it, a European Commission spokesman said on Tuesday.

Eleven planes and one helicopter from the EU fleet have been sent to help Greece counter fires in the Dadia National Park, north of the city of Alexandroupoli, along with 407 firefighters, spokesman Balazs Ujvari said.

Greece’s fire service said that “the fire is still out of control” in the reserve, a major sanctuary for birds of prey. It is raging across a nearly 10-kilometre (six-mile) front.

A forest burns, in the village of Dikela, near Alexandroupolis town, in the northeastern Evros region, of Greece. Photo: AP

The EU currently calls on a fleet of 28 aircraft – 24 water-dumping planes and four helicopters – supplied by member countries to help battle blazes in the bloc and in nearby neighbours.

It is working on creating a stand-alone, EU-funded air wing of 12 aircraft that will be fully in place by 2030.

“We do know that fires are getting more severe,” Ujvari noted.

“If you look at the figures every year in the past years, we are seeing trends which are not necessarily favourable, and that calls for of course more capacities at the member states’ level.”

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