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Beleaguered firefighters trying to stem Greece’s worst wildfire season on record battled two major fires on Friday: one in Evros, home to what one official has called the biggest wildfire the European Union has ever faced, and the other near Athens, the capital. Greek authorities investigating the causes of the fires arrested dozens of people on suspicion of arson.
“It’s a very difficult summer,” a government spokesman, Pavlos Marinakis, told a news conference on Friday, blaming “the explosive combination of climate change” along with arson. He said 160 people had been arrested across the country on arson charges, 42 of them charged with arson and the rest charged with negligent arson. “The guilty will face justice,” he said.
Firefighters are focusing on two fires: one near the Parnitha national park, north of the capital, and another in the northern Evros region, where at least 19 people have died.
The outlook for Mount Parnitha, where a large fire has been burning since Tuesday, looked slightly better Friday morning when the winds dropped briefly, a fire service official said, but firefighters were still struggling to contain an active blaze at west of the forest early in the morning. late. State inspectors began assessing damage to land and homes south of the mountain, where the flames had been extinguished.
A local man accused of starting a series of fires in Avlonas, north of Parnitha, early Thursday will face a prosecutor on Friday, Greek police spokeswoman Constantina Dimoglidou said.
Firefighters continued for the seventh day in Evros. “The fires in #Alexandroupolis are now the largest #forest fires ever recorded that the EU has faced,” said Janez Lenarčič, European Commissioner for Crisis Management, wrote on social media on Thursday, referring to the capital of Evros. He wrote that more than 73,000 hectares, or about 180,000 acres, had burned.
The charred body of a man was discovered on Thursday in a forest near the village of Lefkimmi in Evros, Greece’s fire service said in a statement on Friday.
Efforts were underway to identify another 18 burned bodies, found on Tuesday in Avantas, a few kilometers southwest of Lefkimmi. The dead, including two children, are believed to be migrants because the location where they were found is close to the Turkish border, a popular crossing point, and no locals have been reported missing.
Greece’s Supreme Court prosecutor on Wednesday ordered an investigation into the causes of the fire in Evros, including the possibility that a criminal organization of arsonists was behind it.
Some Evros residents and far-right national politicians have accused the migrants of setting the fires, and at least three men have taken the law into their own hands. The men locked 13 migrants in a windowless trailer Tuesday, blaming them for the fires as the trailer’s owner broadcast the vigilantism live on social media.
On Friday, the three men appeared before a magistrate on charges of illegal detention in Alexandroupoli. The migrants also appeared before the courts, to respond to charges of attempted arson, manufacturing of explosives and illegal entry into the country.
A lawyer representing the owner of the trailer, whom he named Apostolos Tota, said in a statement Wednesday that Tota had carried out a lawful citizen’s arrest and that there was no abuse of detention or racial motive.
“He saw a group of illegal immigrants near the incendiary devices trying to ignite them,” said lawyer Vasilios Demiris, adding that the alleged incident occurred near his client’s family business on the western outskirts of Alexandroupolis.
TO video Mr. Tota posted on social media what appeared to be an improvised incendiary device made up of two car tires, wood and foam. Demiris said the charges against the immigrants were currently based on the three men’s claims and the videos, but an investigation was underway to better substantiate the allegations.
The migrants, eight Syrians and five Pakistanis, were expected to have a 48-hour extension to prepare their defense, one of their lawyers said.
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