EU water bombers join Greek firemen to douse island wildfire

Greece yesterday deployed nearly 400 firefighters backed by EU firebombers to try to put out a massive wildfire on the island of Evia burning through a pristine pine forest for a third day.

“We are more optimistic today because the winds have died down,” Yiorgos Kostopoulos, civil protection supervisor for Evia, told state TV ERT.

Firefighters managed to contain the fire in a ravine near the village of Platana, backed by nearly 100 vehicles, nine helicopters and 12 planes, including two from Italy and one from Spain.

“We are doing whatever we can to create additional fire defences near the village,” Kostopoulos said as an earth mover dug a trench behind him.

The wildfire has caused inestimable damage to the local 550-hectare mountain wildlife sanctuary of Agrilitsa.

It could take another two days to extinguish the flames, a fire department spokesman told Thema radio.

“My shed was burned, there are no more trees for resin collection, so apart from my house, I have nothing else,” a local resident told state TV ERT

The EU’s Copernicus emergency management service has calculated that at least 2,300 hectares (nearly 5,700 acres) have been lost to the fire.

Local community head Dimitris Yiannoutsos told web TV Open there was “total destruction” in the forest but admitted that with the fire still active, officials were “unable to fully estimate the extent of the damage.”