Wildfires rampage in forests, cut island in half

Three large wildfires churned across Greece on Saturday, with one threatening whole towns and cutting Evia, the country’s second-largest island, in half. Others engulfed forested mountainsides and skirted ancient sites, leaving behind a trail of destruction that one official described as “a biblical catastrophe.”

The fire on Evia forced the hasty Friday night evacuation of about 1,400 people from a seaside village and island beaches by a motley assortment of boats after the approaching flames cut off other means of escape.

The other dangerous fires were in Greece’s southern Peloponnese peninsula, one near Ancient Olympia and one in the Mani region of the Peloponnese, south of Sparta. The fire in Eastern Olympia moved east of the ancient site, threatening villages, in a sudden flare-up Saturday afternoon.

One volunteer firefighter died Friday and at least 20 people have been treated in hospitals over the last week during Greece’s most intense heat wave in three decades. Temperatures soared up to 113 degrees.

Fires described as the worst in decades have swept through stretches of Turkey’s southern coast for the past 10 days, killing eight people.