One hundred Ukrainian firefighters sent to Greece to help fight the fires that have engulfed the country have successfully put out a two kilometer blaze, saving the villages of Spathari and Metochi from destruction on Aug. 7, the State Emergency Service said.
The firefighters arrived on the island of Evia on Aug. 6, a day after President Volodymyr Zelensky promised to aid Greece in its fight against the huge wildfires that have raged for more than ten days and burnt more than 56,000 hectares of land across the country.
The fires broke out after Greece experienced its most severe heatwave in 30 years, with temperatures spiking to 45 Celsius. Evia is the country’s second-largest island and is one of the regions hardest hit by the disaster.
More than 2,000 people have been evacuated from the island.
“The wind was really strong, but our firefighters were able to rescue two villages, cattle, warehouses, agricultural machinery. The locals are very happy with the work of Ukrainian firefighters, they’ve fed them,” said the Ukrainian embassy in Greece.
On Aug. 5, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said the worst is yet to come as westerly winds have been strengthening, making it difficult to keep up with the spread of the wildfires.
Greece is not the only country in southern Europe caught up in a battle against nature.
For more than a week, wildfires have swept through southwestern Turkey. Over 35,000 people have been evacuated from the province of Mugla.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a report that UN Secretary-General António Guterres called a “code red for humanity”.
The report is the first major review of the science of climate change since 2013 and is the first of a series of reports that will be published over the next couple of months.
“It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, oceans, and land,” the IPCC document reads.
