Greece faces scorching temperatures as wildfires persist

Greece has ordered evacuations for areas near two central cities after more wildfires broke out on the mainland.

Locals on the outskirts of the town of Lamia were told to leave, and villages near the industrial city of Volos were also evacuated as a precaution.

"It's hell here. There are four different fronts... stretching across a combined 10 kilometers (six miles)," Dorothea Kolindrini, a deputy governor from an area included in the orders, told state TV ERT.

Meanwhile, new evacuations were ordered overnight on the islands of Corfu, Evia and Rhodes.

Italian photographer and journalist Francesco Bellina told DW that the fires around Palermo, Sicily, had created "a real apocalypse."

Three people have died as a result of the blazes on the southern Italian island. 

"Everything is totally burned around the city," Bellina said, adding that the fires had caused tens of millions of euros in damage in the region.

He said problems such as the buildup of garbage and lack of emergency resources meant the fire was able to come relatively close to Palermo's urban center.

"Every year we have the same problems. But this time, unfortunately, three people died," he said, calling on politicians to pay more attention to climate change.

"I really don't understand ... why they don't take care of our environment, why they don't put their attention on this problem, because it's not new for us, unfortunately."

The European Commission says EU members are supporting Greece with almost 500 firefighters and seven planes deployed to different parts of the country.

"Together, we are deploying available resources to fight the fires and protect our citizens and landscapes," EU Crisis Commissioner Janez Lenarcic said in a statement.

More land in Greece has burned this year alone than the long-term annual average, according to data from the EU's earth observation programme Copernicus.

Two firefighting aircraft from the EU have also been deployed to northwestern Tunisia.

Separately, Lenarcic told the Reuters news agency that the EU was seeking to sign contracts this year for up to 12 firefighting planes to improve its ability to fight blazes.

Crews have contained a fire that erupted in the mountainous area of Cascais, a popular tourist destination near Lisbon, Portugal.

Authorities said firefighters would remain on the ground to monitor the situation.

Elisio Oliveira, the civil protection commander, said the blaze no longer posed a risk to people.

The wildfire broke out in the Sintra-Cascais natural park, which covers around 145 square kilometers (56 square miles) of land and is located just west of Lisbon.

Around 90 people were evacuated as a precautionary measure. No houses were damaged, nor were any major injuries reported, according to authorities.

Forest fires scorched more than 2 square kilometers of land on the French Mediterranean island of Corsica.

French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said that people at a monastery to the north of the island had been evacuated.

Some 200 firefighters were deployed to the region to battle the blazes.

Strong winds were fanning the fires in the northern town of Pigna, the fire brigade wrote on Tuesday.

Gilles Simeoni, the head of the Corsican executive council, wrote that a probable cause of the fire on the island was arson.

Italy's southern island of Sicily has been devastated by wildfires that have killed three elderly people, its regional president said.

Fires were still burning on the hills around capital Palermo on Wednesday. Some 3,000 firefighters and water-bombing aircraft were trying to douse the flames. 

The charred bodies of a couple in their 70s were found in their scorched home on the outskirts of Palermo, local media quoted the regional president as saying.

Another woman in her late 80s died in Palermo province after an ambulance was unable to reach her home due to fires.

Sicilian President Renato Schifani wrote in an overnight message on Facebook that "scorching heat and unprecedented devastating fires" had turned Tuesday into "one of the most difficult days in decades."

Italian firefighters said they battled nearly 1,400 fires between Sunday and Tuesday. 

Firefighters are racing to control blazes that have been raging for days amid a return of heat wave temperatures in Greece.

A third successive heat wave has pushed temperatures back above 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) across parts of the country. 

Crews were tackling a fire on the island of Evia, where two pilots were killed after a Greek air force-water dropping plane crashed.

On the popular island of Rhodes, dozens of firefighters tried to tame three fronts more than a week after the wildfires broke out, the fire brigade said.

Some 20,000 people have fled the island since the weekend, prompting the largest wildfire-evacuation in Greece's history.

"Wildfires across Greece have abated but firefighters are still operating at different spots," a fire brigade official said. 

rm/wd (Reuters, AFP, AP, dpa)