Greek authorities scrambled to contain more than 70 wildfires across the country on Friday, including near Athens and the island of Crete, as France and Spain reported progress in controlling major blazes. Residents in two communities west of Athens were ordered to evacuate as smoke billowed from wooded hills surrounding the capital, while hundreds were evacuated by sea from coastal towns in central Greece.
Evacuations by air and sea were underway in Boeotia, northwest of Athens, where coast guard boats and fishing vessels transported residents and tourists from the small coastal community of Porto Germeno. Authorities described the fire as a large, uncontrolled front in inaccessible terrain, though winds had temporarily subsided. "The intensity of the fire seems to have gone down a bit, but it's still a big, uncontrolled front," said Georgios Dasiotis, vice prefect of Boeotia prefecture.
On the island of Crete, firefighters continued battling persistent hotspots along a 9.3-mile fire front, guarding against fresh outbreaks after a blaze earlier in the week forced the evacuation of 8,000 people. Additional fires were reported on the islands of Paros, Andros, and Kalymnos. In central Greece, near Agios Vasileios in Viotia, 500 people—mostly tourists—were stranded before 200 were evacuated by boat and another 100 were scheduled for transport. The fire spread rapidly in strong winds, prompting authorities to urge inland movement before the flames reached the town’s outskirts.
The Greek fire brigade remained at maximum alert, warning of particularly high fire risk in the Attica peninsula and the island of Evia, where fires are frequent. Across Europe, record-breaking heatwaves have dried vegetation, creating conditions primed for wildfires. In France and Spain, officials reported improvements after battling major blazes for weeks, though authorities cautioned that new heatwaves could reignite dormant fires.
Climate change and fire risk
Scientists from the World Weather Attribution group found that human-caused climate change made the extreme weather fueling wildfires in southwestern France twice as likely and conditions in central Spain 20 times more likely. The analysis, based on historical weather observations, indicated that in today’s climate, such extreme fires are likely to occur once every 20 years in France and once every six years in Spain. "We’ve seen repeatedly how climate change increases hot, dry, flammable conditions that are extremely conducive to wildfires," said Clair Barnes, a research associate at Imperial College London and co-author of the study.
The pattern of a wet winter followed by a dry spring and summer has contributed to Europe’s wildfire risk, as it leaves forests stocked with highly flammable fuel. Mitigation efforts, including landscape management, were emphasized by scientists as critical to reducing future risks.
Regional impacts
In Portugal, firefighters continued tackling blazes spanning thousands of hectares, while a new heatwave raised concerns about a potential resurgence of a major fire near Madrid. The European Union’s Copernicus Emergency Management Service has tracked the spread of wildfires across the continent, with Greece, Spain, and France among the hardest-hit nations this summer. The fires have forced hundreds of thousands of evacuations and scorched vast stretches of land, underscoring the escalating challenge posed by extreme weather events linked to climate change.