The wildfire in Evros, northeastern Greece is burning for the 15th day on Saturday despite the efforts of hundreds of firefighters.
As of Friday, the firefighting effort involves 129 fire engines with a crew of 586 members, 16 teams of firefighters on foot, supported by six firefighting aircraft and two helicopters.
Additional forces from EU countries and Albania, as well as armed Forces, police, and firefighting volunteers, are also assisting.
The blaze that began near the port city of Alexandroupolis on Aug. 19 joined with smaller fires to form an inferno that has decimated homes and vast tracts of land near the border with Turkey.
The blaze led to the evacuations of thousands of people and was blamed for twenty of Greece’s twenty-first fire-related deaths last week.
In the most deadly incident, the bodies of eighteen migrants were discovered by firefighters in the Dadia Forest.
25 migrants rescued for the wildfire in Evros, Greece
On Friday, firefighters rescued a group of 25 migrants trapped in the Dadia Forest.
“While operating between the villages of Giannouli and Dadia, 25 people were found and taken to a safe place by the fire brigade and police,” Greek fire brigade spokesperson Ioann is Artopoios said.
No injuries were reported.
The irregular migrants were all male and said they were from Syria, Iraq and Lebanon, a police official said. The official said they were arrested.
Speaking in Parliament on Thursday, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis implied that refugees may have been responsible for the Evros fire, even though he noted an investigation into the causes is still ongoing.
“It is almost certain that the causes were manmade. And it is also almost certain that this fire started on routes that are often used by illegal migrants who have entered our country,” Mitsotakis said.
“We don’t know if it was negligence or deliberate.”
Greece to deploy drones and sensors to combat wildfires
He also revealed plans to deploy drones and forest temperature sensors to detect wildfires in their early stages.
The Greek prime minister outlined the government’s intentions to procure one hundred drones to monitor wildfires from the air. At the same time, temperature sensors will be installed at vulnerable archaeological sites and forests where fires could cause the most damage.
Additionally, the government plans to increase manpower. As a part of the new measures, five hundred scientists specializing in forests will be hired alongside one thousand firefighters.
“Although we were better prepared than any other year, we faced an unprecedented combination of incidents,” he added.
Multiple wildfires have spread across Greece since July impacting areas across the country, including popular tourist destinations like Corfu and Rhodes.
A very high threat of fire was forecast on Saturday, particularly in the Regions of Attica, Central Greece (Boeotia, Evia and Skyros islands), East Macedonia and Thrace (Evros), and North Aegean (Lesvos, Chios, Samos and Ikaria islands).
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