Fires ease in area where Cypriot firefighters operate (updated)

The Cypriot firefighting mission in Greece has been moved to a different area after battling fires in Parnitha until late at night on Friday.

The 31-member team is now operating to Varnava-Grammatikou area, following relevant instructions by the Greek fire brigade, fire service spokesman Andreas Kettis wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, on Saturday morning.

In the afternoon, Kettis said the situation in Grammatikou is “clearly better” and Cypriots and Greek firefighters were making efforts to put the fire under control.

Meanwhile, the Greek foreign ministry thanked the island for its help in extinguishing the forest fires burning in Greece for the past week.

“We warmly thank Cyprus for its assistance in extinguishing the forest fires affecting our country,” the Greek Foreign Ministry said in a post on X on Saturday. It also republished a post by the Directorate General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations, which makes reference to the two planes sent by Cyprus through rescEU and which are operating in Alexandroupolis.

The Cypriot mission arrived in Athens on Friday morning when they were divided into two groups operating in different areas in Parnitha, near the Greek capital. They were working together with firefighters from Greece and Slovakia.

Fire extinguishing efforts in Parnitha were described as “very difficult” mainly due to the poor environment conditions, Kettis wrote citing the head of the Cypriot mission in Greece Christophoros Stylianou. He explained that the forest is dense and the area is rugged.

Fire crews were battling 517 wildfires that had broken out across Greece since last Friday, fuelled by high temperatures and in some cases gale force winds.

The flames have been described as the largest recorded wildfire on European soil in years by the EU-backed Copernicus Climate Change Service.

“Greece is going through the most difficult year, in terms of climatic conditions, in the history of recording and collecting meteorological data,” government spokesperson Pavlos Marinakis told a regular briefing.

The blaze has killed 19 migrants who were charred “beyond recognition” in one part of the forest close to Turkey. More are feared to be dead. Tens of thousands of hectares of land have been destroyed in the northeast alone.

While summer wildfires are common in Greece, the government says conditions, which scientists link to climate change have made them more intense this year.