LE PORGE, France\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Europe\u2019s wildfire emergency eased across much of Western Europe on Saturday, but its most dangerous front shifted to Greece, where gale-force winds drove flames through a seaside resort, forced hundreds to flee by sea and hampered firefighting aircraft.<\/p>\n
For Greece, the danger carried grim resonance: A 2018 wildfire at the seaside community of Mati, near Athens, killed 104 people, Europe\u2019s deadliest wildfire this century.<\/p>\n
In southwestern France, firefighters held a vast wildfire within its perimeter, with about 198,000 people now allowed to return home after what may have been the country\u2019s largest peacetime evacuation.<\/p>\n
Major fires in Spain were also no longer advancing, and Portugal\u2019s main blaze was under control.<\/p>\n
A second French fire stopped expanding overnight after racing across 4 square miles in six hours Friday \u2014 \u201cfaster than a horse at full gallop,\u201d according to the prefecture. But it remained active Saturday, and 2,500 people were still unable to return home.<\/p>\n
The gains in Western Europe marked a sharp turn from the height of the crisis, when fires in France and Spain alone drove a third of a million people from homes and vacation sites, emptied towns during the summer holiday season and stretched firefighters, aircraft and emergency services across simultaneous emergencies.<\/p>\n
Europe is Earth\u2019s fastest-warming continent, heating at more than twice the global average since the 1980s, according to the European Union\u2019s Copernicus climate service. Rising temperatures and prolonged drought leave vegetation drier and more combustible, allowing fires to spread faster and burn more intensely.<\/p>\n
Winds drive Greek fires<\/p>\n
In Greece, nearly 500 firefighters worked Saturday to protect Porto Germeno, a popular resort on the Gulf of Corinth, as flames tore through thick pine forest and smoke blocked out the sun.<\/p>\n
The fire broke out Friday near the neighboring coastal village of Agios Vasileios. About 300 people were evacuated by sea, and authorities issued further evacuation orders Saturday.<\/p>\n
\u201cA pristine forest, a paradise, was surrendered to the hands of the fire,\u201d said Minas Tzortzanis, a 60-year-old farmer and resident. \u201cThere are no words to explain what has happened. Destruction. Total destruction.\u201d<\/p>\n
Theodore Giannaros, a wildfire meteorologist at the National Observatory of Athens, estimated that 15 to 20 square miles had been affected. Authorities had not issued an official burned-area figure.<\/p>\n
The operation also included specialized forest fire teams, crews temporarily deployed from France and Romania, 19 water-dropping planes and 11 helicopters.<\/p>\n
New fires erupted elsewhere in Greece. A blaze east of Nafpaktos prompted evacuation alerts for at least four villages.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe very strong to gale-force winds continue to create exceptionally difficult conditions,\u201d Climate Crisis and Civil Protection Minister Evangelos Tournas said.<\/p>\n
Extreme turbulence was preventing some aircraft from collecting water or approaching the fires closely enough to make drops, he said.<\/p>\n
Evacuation orders remain in western France<\/p>\n
The Gironde fire has burned 162 square miles of pine forest west of Bordeaux, an area four times the size of Paris.<\/p>\n
It remained contained within its perimeter Saturday but had not been declared \u201cfixed\u201d \u2014 the point at which crews determine that a fire is no longer advancing. Active sectors and buried hot spots persisted.<\/p>\n
Authorities reopened more communities Friday, but several remained largely deserted Saturday. Much of the forested Cap Ferret peninsula stayed evacuated because a nearby hot spot could flare again, cut its limited road access and trap returning residents.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday, the fire is still not fixed. It is contained,\u201d Lt. Col. Eric Pitault told reporters.<\/p>\n
Crews used tactical burns overnight. Along 150 miles of fire edge, heat could remain hidden underground and erupt again.<\/p>\n
Renewed blaze remains active<\/p>\n
In France\u2019s Mediterranean Var region, defensive lines around the Gros Bessillon fire held overnight and no additional ground burned, Var Prefect Simon Babre told French media Saturday.<\/p>\n
The blaze had been declared fixed earlier in the week before gusts revived embers Friday and sent it racing through dry hills in temperatures approaching 108 degrees. <\/p>\n
It remained active Saturday, with 1,300 firefighters deployed and about 2,500 people unable to return home. The fire\u2019s sudden return \u201cdefies understanding,\u201d Babre said.<\/p>\n
Twenty French departments were under an \u201corange\u201d heat warning Saturday \u2014 the second most severe \u2014 mostly in the east and southeast. Eight departments faced a high forest fire risk.<\/p>\n
Residents return<\/p>\n
For residents returning to the Gironde fire zone, the easing emergency brought a first reckoning with what had been lost.<\/p>\n
In Le Porge, one of the communities hardest hit, Matthieu Plessis returned Saturday to the ruins of a home that had been in his family for seven generations.<\/p>\n
Just over a week earlier, smoke had turned the afternoon almost to night as flames raced along both sides of the road. Now the 40-year-old mechanic drove through blackened forest and struggled to identify what had once stood there.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are little details here and there that I recognize, but otherwise everything is unrecognizable,\u201d Plessis said. \u201cYou don\u2019t even know what was here anymore, or who lived where.\u201d<\/p>\n
He had to force open the property\u2019s gate because its key had burned. A chimney and twisted metal frames were among the few clues to where the rooms had been. The tools and machinery from his bicycle repair business were gone.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not easy. I\u2019m trying to stay strong and help other people now,\u201d Plessis said. \u201cI don\u2019t want to spend the next 10 years feeling sorry for myself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Adamson and Garriga write for the Associated Press. Adamson reported from Paris. AP writers Elena Becatoros in Athens and Michael Varaklas in Porto Germeno contributed to this report. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LE PORGE, France\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Europe\u2019s wildfire emergency eased across much of Western Europe on Saturday, but its most dangerous front…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1125260,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5174],"tags":[1151,29780,171862,2000,299,5187,252,19962,109267,12866,1450,457,37956,21029,306188,38412,306189],"class_list":["post-1125259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-eu","tag-athens","tag-authority","tag-crew","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-european","tag-fire","tag-firefighter","tag-firefighting-aircraft","tag-flame","tag-greece","tag-people","tag-resident","tag-saturday","tag-southwestern-france","tag-square-mile","tag-thick-pine-forest"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/117023819110094801","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1125259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1125259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1125259\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1125260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1125259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1125259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1125259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}