FLAMES DEVOUR FORESTS, HOMES IN EUROPE
Advancing flames devoured forests and homes as wildfires that have killed 20 people raged across swaths of Greece on Wednesday, with blazes also burning in neighboring Turkey and in Spain's Canary Islands.
Greece's largest forest fire was burning out of control for the fifth day near the city of Alexandroupolis in the northeast. Another major blaze on the outskirts of Athens torched homes, reducing some to piles of smoldering rubble, and encroached into the national park on Mount Parnitha, one of the last green areas near the Greek capital.
From Friday to Tuesday, 355 wildfires broke out, Climate Crisis and Civil Protection Minister Vassilis Kikilias said. On Wednesday, firefighters were tackling 99 blazes, fire department spokesperson Ioannis Artopios said in an evening briefing, including 55 that had broken out in the previous 24 hours.
Authorities made 140 wildfire-related arrests, including 117 for negligence and 23 for deliberate arson, Artopios said, adding that nearly all were for heat-inducing or agricultural outdoor work.
Gale-force winds combined with hot, dry weather to whip up the flames, making the blazes exceptionally difficult to bring under control, authorities said.
Weather conditions this summer have been “the worst since meteorological data have been gathered and the fire risk map has been issued in the country,” Kikilias told a news conference.
Across the border in Turkey's Canakkale province, strong winds fanned a wildfire for a second day. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said winds reaching 40 miles per hour at times were hampering efforts to extinguish the blaze but said firefighters had managed to halt its spread.
“Hopefully, we will get it under control soon,” Erdogan said in a televised address.
Ibrahim Yumakli, Turkey's forestry minister, said firefighting teams and more than two dozen fire-dousing planes and helicopters had largely blocked the blaze from spreading beyond the 5.8 square miles it had already affected.
In Tenerife in Spain's Canary Islands, authorities said a wildfire burning for more than a week was nearly under control after scorching 150 square kilometers (58 square miles).
“It's a very tough battle that the firefighting teams are winning,” said Canary regional government counselor Manuel Miranda.