A European Commission spokesperson claimed on Tuesday that a forest fire in Greece is “the largest wildfire ever recorded in the EU” and that the organization is mobilizing nearly half of its firefighting air wing to combat it.
In northeastern Greece, where at least 20 people have died as a result of the fires, which have been raging for 11 days, a “ecological disaster” is being posed.
According to spokesman Balazs Ujvari, 407 firefighters and eleven aircraft from the EU fleet have been dispatched to assist Greece fight the fire north of the city of Alexandroupoli.
The fire has burned more than 810 square kilometers (310 square miles), an area larger than New York City, according to the EU’s civil protection service.
Since the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS) started collecting data in 2000, this blaze has been the largest in the EU, according to the agency.
Since it started on August 19, 20 bodies have been discovered, 18 of them migrants, including two children, who were located in a location that is frequently utilized as a point of entrance from neighboring Turkey.
According to Greece’s fire department, the blaze in the Dadia National Park, a significant bird of prey refuge, was “still out of control” when it was reported to AFP.
The park had already seen a significant fire in 2011, according to forest ranger Dora Skartsis, who lamented that “everything that was regenerated since has been lost” lately.
“We’re discussing a major ecological catastrophe. The picture is awful, said Skartsis, who is also the regional director of an organisation that works to safeguard biodiversity.
In Evros, one of the country’s poorest districts, the forest also plays a crucial economic role in sustaining logging, beekeeping, and tourism businesses.
Kostas Dounakis, the head of the neighborhood cattle breeders’ association, estimates that at least 4,000 sheep and goats have been killed in the fire alone in Alexandroupoli, and that it has also damaged warehouses that held animal feed.
Deadly impact
Currently, the European Union uses a fleet of 28 aircraft—24 water-dumping planes and four helicopters—provided by member nations to assist in fighting fires both inside the bloc and among its immediate neighbors.
It is constructing a 12-aircraft independent air wing that will be completely operational by 2030 and be sponsored by the EU.
“We do know that fires are getting more severe,” Ujvari said.
“If you look at the data from the previous years on an annual basis, we are seeing trends that are not always favorable, and that obviously necessitates increased member state capacity.
The government has blamed climate change for the multiple fires that have plagued Greece this summer.
The deployment of EU aircraft “underscores our commitment to swift and effective collective action in times of crisis,” according to Janez Lenarcic, the EU’s commissioner for crisis management.
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis met with a number of departments on Tuesday to talk about the need for replanting after the fire is put out, looking beyond the current fire season.
Theodoros Skylakakis, the environment minister, has declared that flood control work must get underway in order to stop landslides along the now-arid terrain when the rains return in the autumn.
