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A wall of flames: forest fire in the northeast of Athens, the police cordon off streets
Photo: Eurokinissi / imago images / ZUMA Wire
Just 25 kilometers north of Athens city center, another huge forest fire broke out on Thursday afternoon.
TV pictures showed a kilometer-long wall of flames and smoke as high as a house.
Fire-fighting planes and helicopters were in action, but had to stop working when it was dark.
As a precaution, the electricity company switched off a large distributor in the region.
The company announced that it would locally interrupt the electricity in Athens on Thursday evening in order to be able to maintain the overall supply.
The village of Krioneri 25 kilometers north of Athens city center was evacuated as a precaution, and a refugee camp also had to be evacuated.
The country's central motorway between Athens and the second largest city of Thessaloniki is now closed in the region concerned.
Mitsotakis announces military action
There were also several new sources of fire on the island of Evia, which is heavily forested.
Church bells rang the alarm, residents fled or tried to cut aisles with tractors and chainsaws to keep the flames from moving.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced that he would use the military.
Soldiers should follow the situation from the air with drones and discover new sources of fire in good time.
They are also supposed to support the fire brigade with excavators and other heavy equipment and transport water to the sources of the fire in tankers.
Three new fires in the region - every hour
Big fires also continue to run out of control in Turkey.
The Turkish Forest Service reported 180 fires on Thursday, 12 of which are not yet under control.
In Greece, 92 new forest fires broke out across the country within 24 hours.
According to this, a good three new fires break out every hour in the eastern Mediterranean region, often in remote regions.
The provinces of Antalya and Mugla were particularly hard hit. Almost 12,000 houses and more than 36,000 people were evacuated in Mugla alone, spokesmen for local authorities said. According to official information, 2000 houses have been damaged so far, at least eight people have died. Tourists were sometimes taken from holiday resorts by water.
Meanwhile, the Turkish General Prosecutor's Office is investigating a campaign on social media.
Under the hashtag #HelpTurkey, users asked for international help in the fight against the fire.
Since the fires started last week, criticism of the equipment of the emergency services has been raised again and again.
The state news agency Anadolu reported that it is now being investigated, among other things, for "generating worry, fear and panic" in the population and inciting the people to hatred and hostility.
Fires also in Italy and Bulgaria
In Italy, the emergency services also continued to fight the flames.
Sicily and Calabria, among others, were affected.
Fire-fighting planes are in use in the provinces of Messina and Palermo, the fire brigade announced on Twitter.
Environment Minister Roberto Cingolani said that around 70 percent of the fires were caused by human misconduct.
Then there are the consequences of climate change.
In Bulgaria, the second highest alert level for 24 of the 28 regions was declared on Thursday - also in the capital Sofia with around 1.5 million inhabitants.
The two major fires in the south of the Balkans were initially brought under control, as reported by the Bulgarian media.
However, two forest workers were killed and another was badly burned.
fek / dpa
