Firefighters and residents battled a forest fire on Greece’s second-largest island for a seventh day Monday. With roads on the island cut off by flames, residents and tourists fled to beaches and jetties to be ferried to safety.
The smoke and ash from the fire on Evia, a rugged island of forests and coves almost touching the Greek mainland, blocked out the sun and turned the sky orange.
“You could feel the enormous heat, there was also a lot of smoke. You could see the sun, a red ball, and then, nothing else around,” he said. The causes of the blazes are as yet undetermined, though several people have been arrested for alleged arson. Greek media reported Monday the country’s top prosecutor has ordered an investigation into whether the high number of fires could be linked to intentional criminal activity.
Greek authorities, scarred by a deadly wildfire in 2018 near Athens that killed more than 100 people, have emphasized saving lives, issuing dozens of evacuation orders. The coast guard said 2,770 people had been evacuated by sea across the country between July 31 and Aug. 8. “If they had evacuated their villages, as the civil protection told them to, everything would have been burnt down – perhaps even two days sooner,” he said. “Of course, they never saw any water-dropping aircraft. And of course now the conditions are wrong for them to fly, due to the smoke.”
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