GREECE ARRESTS DOZENS, ALLEGES ARSON

Beleaguered firefighters trying to curb Greece’s worst wildfire season on record battled two major blazes Friday: one in Evros, home to what an official has called the biggest wildfire the European Union has faced, and the other near Athens, the capital. Greek authorities investigating the causes of the fires arrested dozens of people on suspicion of arson.

“It’s a very difficult summer,” a government spokesperson, Pavlos Marinakis, said at a news briefing Friday, blaming “the explosive mix of climate change” along with arson.

He said that 160 people had been arrested across the country on arson charges, 42 of them accused of intentional arson and the remainder accused of setting fires through neglect. “The culprits will face justice,” he said.

The firefighters are focusing on two fires: one near Parnitha National Park, north of the capital, and the other in the northern region of Evros, where at least 19 people have died.

The outlook for Mount Parnitha, where a large fire has been burning since Tuesday, appeared slightly better Friday morning when winds briefly dropped, a fire service official said, but firefighters were still working to contain an active blaze west of the forest in the early afternoon. State inspectors started evaluating the damage to land and homes south of the mountain, where the flames had been doused.

Firefighting continued for a seventh day in Evros. “The fires in #Alexandroupolis are now the largest #wildfires on record the EU has faced,” Janez Lenarcic, the European commissioner for crisis management, wrote on social media Thursday, referring to the capital of Evros. He wrote that more than 180,000 acres had burned.

The charred body of a man was discovered Thursday in a forest near the village of Lefkimmi in Evros, Greece’s fire service said in a statement Friday.

Efforts were under way to identify 18 other burned bodies, found Tuesday in Avantas, a few miles southwest of Lefkimmi. The dead, who include two children, are believed to have been migrants because the spot where they were found is near the border with Turkey, a popular crossing point, and no locals have been reported missing.

MICHAEL VARAKLAS AP Electric company workers replace a utility pole after a wildfire in the Fyli suburb of Athens, Greece, on Friday. Authorities there are battling a major wildfire that has been described as the European Union’s largest single fire recorded.