Greece wildfire scorches area bigger than New York, largest ever recorded in EU

The forest blaze in Greece is “the largest wildfire ever recorded in the EU” as the bloc mobilised nearly half its firefighting air wing to tackle it, a European commission spokesman said.

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. Over 400 firefighters are involved in the operations as Greece has been ravaged by numerous fires this summer which the government attributed to climate change.

Greece’s fire service told news agency AFP 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. We do know that fires are getting more severe. 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.”

The wildfire has been burning in northeastern Greece for 11 days and has destroyed an area larger than New York City, the European Union-backed Copernicus climate change service said. The fire began near the city of Alexandroupolis and quickly spread across the Evros region killing at least 20 people last week in Europe’s deadliest blaze this summer.

The Copernicus emergency management service said the fire had ravaged at least 808.7 square kilometres. New York City takes up 778.2 square miles. Last week that the fire was the largest on European soil in years, Copernicus noted.

Aircraft and hundreds of firefighters on the ground, including from Serbia, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Albania have been battling the flames, the fire brigade said as authorities warned that risks from the fire remained high.

Summer wildfires are common in Greece but the government says extreme weather conditions have made them worse this year. Greece’s deadliest fire on record killed 104 people outside Athens in 2018.