Greek Wildfires persist as temperatures rise
Pastor Dale Morgan
Greek Wildfires persist as temperatures rise*
ATHENS, Sept 1 (AFP) Sep 01, 2007
Firefighters in southern Greece were battling Saturday to contain the
remains of an inferno that has killed more than 60 people, with
temperatures forecast to rise again after a recent brief respite.
Five large fires were still burning in the Peloponnese peninsula to the
south of Athens and the island of Evia east of the capital, but
inhabited areas were not in threat, a fire department spokesman said.
"The fires are burning over an enormous area which firemen cannot easily
access on foot, it would require a force of tens of thousands of
people," fire department spokesman Nikolaos Diamantis told reporters on
Friday evening.
Temperatures were forecast to reach 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees
Fahrenheit) in these areas and in Athens on Saturday while stormy
weather was expected in the north.
Lower temperatures and lighter winds had helped firefighters earlier
this week to get to grips with the fires that have killed at least 63
people and destroyed around 200,000 hectares (500,000 acres) of forest
and agricultural land.
Ten fire-fighting plans and three helicopters were operating in the
Peloponnese, where the situation was worst on Mount Parnon, near the
town of Sparta.
"The fires on Mount Parnon are at a great altitude and airborne units
are needed to counter them," Diamantis said.
New fires broke out Friday on the island of Zakynthos in the Ionian Sea
and in the northern region of Kilkis but were contained, the fire
department said.
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso flew to Greece early
on Saturday morning to assess the vast damage, and flew by helicopter
over the Peloponnese with Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis.
The Peloponnese inferno started on August 24 in the wake of a heatwave,
the third to hit Greece since the beginning of the summer.