Greece Battles Raging Wildfires: International Aid Arrives Amid Crisis

Firefighters in Greece are working to contain the remnants of a major wildfire near Athens that has prompted evacuations and death. Reinforcements from across Europe are aiding in the effort. The blaze has burned thousands of acres, challenging firefighters who are already strained by increasing wildfire incidents due to climate change.

Firefighters in Greece battled scattered fires in hopes of containing the remains of a major wildfire that burned into the northern suburbs of Athens, triggering multiple evacuations and leaving at least one person dead.

With strong winds that had fanned the flames on Sunday and Monday dying down overnight, the fire department on Tuesday said the fire no longer had any active, advancing fronts and firefighters focused on extinguishing hundreds of slow-burning areas. Reinforcements of water-dropping aircraft and firefighters were arriving from abroad after Greece requested assistance from Europe's joint disaster response mechanism.

Dozens of homes and businesses were reported to have burned, although authorities did not yet have an exact number. Winds strengthened again Tuesday afternoon, but no new major flare-ups were reported. The European Union's Copernicus Emergency Management Service, which provides mapping services for natural disasters using satellite images, said that by Monday the blaze had burned 8,500 hectares (21,000 acres, 85 square kilometers). Helicopters, planes and hundreds of firefighters and vehicles were arriving from France, Italy, the Czech Republic, Turkey, Serbia and Romania. Turkey's Agriculture and Forestry Minister Ibrahim Yumakli said two firefighting planes and one helicopter had taken off Tuesday morning headed to Greece. 'I wish all the best to our colleagues who work with the motto Forests are the world's common heritage,' Yumakli posted on the social media platform X.

(With inputs from agencies.)