Dangerous conditions for the start of wildfires are expected to prevail in several regions of Greece over the weekend, the meteo service of the National Observatory of Athens said in its latest forecast on Friday.
Low humidity and high wind intensity will create conditions in favor of wildfires start and their quick spread. The conditions will prevail also during the night.
Intensity of the north wind is forecast to be 5-6 Beaufort and up to 7 B locally.
Regions at highest risk are Eastern Greece, the Attica region, several islands in the eastern and central Aegean Sea and the south of Crete.
High temperatures combined low humidity and a substantial increase of wind speed are expected to raise the risk of wildfires particularly on Sunday, July 3, 2022.
- Chart A: Humidity content in dead forest material below 10%
- Chart B: Fire-meteorological index Hot-Dry-win
According to meteo.gr, regions at high risk of wildfires on July 2-3 are: Attica, Central and South Evia, parts of Viotia, Corinth, Argolida, Lakonia, the Cyclades islands, the islands of Lesvos, Chios, Limnos and Samothraki, eastern Samos and southern Crete.
ATTENTION
During the fires season and especially in high risk areas, fire outdoors is strictly forbidden.
In case you notice a fire call the Fire Service at <199>
Note that according to the Fire Service 41 forest fires occurred in the last 24 hours.
Temperatures will remain high on Saturday and Sunday.
More on temperature forecast meteo.gr
Firefighters from 6 European countries
Worth noting that the first group of Romanian firefighters arrived in Αthens on Friday to assist local forces against wild- and forestfires that plaque Greece every summer.
Almost 200 firefighters from Bulgaria, France, Germany, Norway, Romania and Finland will join the battle against the summer fires in Greece. The deployment of foreign firefighters is in the context of the European Civil Protection Mechanism and the pre-positioning pilot project that started on July 1.
The firefighters are reportedly mainly young, up to 30 years old.
They will be based in Athens, Larissa, central Greece, and Tripoli, central Peloponnese, for the months of July and August to help extinguish forest fires with both pedestrian and motorized units.
So we will see greatly enhanced ground and air patrols (air to include drones) in the forecast areas to ensure proactive and not just reactive activity.
Now all we need to do is to get the authorities to enforce their own rules about residents clearing their land (to be completed by the end of May!!) and we may have a fighting chance of avoiding too many dangerous fires. That said, I’m not hopeful – twelve years and five complaints about land immediately adjacent to our house (which the authorities have acknowledged is a fire risk) and still nothing done.
if local & other authorities apply their own rules first, such as clearing trash/branches/trim trees etc, citizens may follow. the fish stinks from the head, as everybody knows.
I sorta disagree although i know this is in quite a few peoples mindset (the authorities don’t do this so i won’t….). It shouldn’t matter what other people do / authorities don’t do as long as you do the right thing. Shame many people think like this. I remember years ago i put some litter in my pocket waiting for a bin, someone said to me, why don’t you drop it on the floor like all the other people do…
I personally do the right thing. but if authorities tell people to trim their trees & make a fire-free 10-mete ring around house bulding & no authority picks them up… it’s half work.