European, Israeli assistance headed to Greece to battle wildfires

A major wildfire front was still raging near and around remote settlement of Dervenochoria on Wednesday, northwest of Athens proper, along hilly to mountainous terrain of mixed flora. The front extended to industrial and gritty west Attica prefecture, west of Athens, torching brushland, stockbreeding units and several working-class residences.

Even further to the west, near the Corinth Gulf resort town of Loutraki, another wildfire was burning hilly land, including patches of pine forest.

Still another major wildfire erupted on Tuesday in the central part of Rhodes, a large and popular Dodecanese Island, and was being battled by a sizeable contingent of firefighters.

An ongoing heat wave and arid conditions have put much of southern mainland Greece and several islands in a high-risk category for wildfires this week.

Meanwhile, fire-fighters from Romania, Slovakia and Poland are expected to arrive in the country on Thursday and Friday, after Athens activated an EU civil protection mechanism to request assistance in tackling the spate of wildfires that erupted this week – with the first on Monday, southeast of Athens.

Additionally, a total of four water-dropping planes, two from Italy and two from France, flew to Greece on Tuesday and have already joined fire-fighting efforts.

Netanyahu announces Israeli assistance

Finally, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took to Twitter on Wednesday to announce that the Mideast country will also assist grueling efforts to contain and extinguish the wildfires – a now almost annual natural calamity that affects southern European countries each summer.

“Huge wildfires have broken out in Greece in the past 24 hours. The Greek Government requested that Israel dispatch firefighting aircraft. Prime Minister Netanyahu has decided to send 2 firefighting aircraft from the Elad Squadron to assist Greece for as much time as necessary… The Government of Israel will stand by Greece as it fights the huge wildfires and appreciates Greece’s contribution to extinguishing wildfires in Israel over the past decade.”