It’s been almost two years since the fires on Peloponnese and Euboea and now the citizens of those regions had to face the fire hell again. As citizens of Euboea and Ilya region claim, yesterdays fires might have been set on purpose but the certain thing is that those people had to live through the nightmare of summer 2007 again…something, which they have been trying to put in the past.

The big fire on Euboea, which started around 03:00PM in Mandraki region took over an area of 8km. Due to the strong wind, which reached 8 Buford, the flames quickly spread to a huge territory. Based on the firefighter’s version, the fire had started from the fields of a village man, who was trying to clean it. During the late afternoon hours the tick smoke covered the region and it even reached Athens. This was the cause for many people to move out of their houses, because the air was too tick.

60 firefighter with 24 firefighting trucks and 24 volunteers were fighting the fire. Except for the land firefighters, 12 planes and 2 helicopters were throwing tons of water from the air over the flaming forest. For few hours, the places, where the fire was too close even to homes, the street traffic was stopped. Early at night the wind slowed down, which gave hope to the firefighters, because during the night they could not count on the airplanes and the helicopters.

Fire took over the last green “little island” left in the Ilya region on Peloponnese, where two years ago fires raged for one whole month and caused irretrievable damages, took the lives of more than 100 people and left hundredths homeless. This time the Strofilya forest burnt, which was under the protection of Natura program and was the last green place in the region.

Yesterday, throughout the whole country there were 50 fires, some of which were in Attica region but fortunately all of them were quickly put out and there were no damages.

Based on information provided by the Meteorological Services, in many regions around the country thermometers will show 40⁰C and this heat will be accompanied by strong winds. As firefighting experts claim, “we are talking about a very dangerous combination but what is even more dangerous is the situation in the forests, because there the grass will dry up quicker and this will make it extremely flammable.” Due to this the Chief Civil Protection Secretariat is warning that the following regions will be in danger: Attica region, Euboea island, Beotia region, Korinthos, Argolida, Lakonia – which are in Peloponnese, and the Cycladic islands Lesbos, Chios, Samos, Ikaria and Crete.