Rhodes: While firefighters battled numerous fires across the nation on Thursday, a wildfire fueled by strong winds set off a series of enormous explosions at an air force ammunition depot in central Greece.
The depot was evacuated prior to the explosions, so there were no injuries, and by late Thursday the fire was out. The F-16 fighter jets at a nearby base were relocated to another location out of an abundance of caution, according to the Greek air force, but there was no immediate threat to the base.
Three Mediterranean heat waves in the past two weeks have caused fires to rage across parts of Greece, killing five people, including two firefighting pilots, and forcing a massive weekend evacuation of tourists.
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The ammunition storage facility was affected by the fire in the Volos area of central Greece's Magnissia region, which is located about 6 kilometres (4 miles) north of the main military air base in Nea Anchialos. According to local media, the location was storing bombs and ammunition for Greek F-16 fighters.
Large explosions nearby broke windows on homes, but the Greek fire service reported no serious injuries in the nearby villages, which were also evacuated as a precaution.
Twelve villages in the Volos-Nea Anchialos region were ordered to be evacuated, according to Fire Service spokesman Ioannis Artopios.
Our forces were unable to put out the fire despite their superhuman efforts, he said.
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Of the 124 wildfires the fire service had to contend with on Thursday, Artopios claimed the blaze in the Volos area was the most dangerous.
The wildfire spread on three fronts, forcing the closure of a section of Greece's busiest highway for several hours and delaying national rail services that pass through the area.
State ERT television showed people leaving in cars and buses while others were evacuated by sea from the coastal village of Anchialos, which is about 4 kilometres (2 1/2 miles) from the explosion site. The coast guard reported that more than a hundred locals were transported to Volos in little private boats.
Loud explosions could be heard in the city, which is about 20 kilometres (12 miles) from the Nea Anchialos air base.
Early on Thursday, water-dropping helicopters and a ground crew were dispatched to a different wildfire in Kifissia, close to Athens, which was quickly doused.
On Rhodes, where authorities claimed the fires were largely under control, Greek firefighters fought flames for ten consecutive days. There have been reported flare-ups on the island of Evia.
A UN agency and a climate change service from the European Union said on Thursday that the first three weeks of July's temperatures broke all previous records for heat.
Parts of central Europe have experienced winter conditions while southern Europe battles intense heat and wildfires. The Tatra Mountains in Poland and Slovakia have experienced subfreezing temperatures, frost, and snow.
Firefighters in Italy battled brush fires in the southern mainland regions of Calabria and Puglia, as well as the islands of Sicily and Sardinia, with the help of a 13 degree Celsius (or 23 degree Fahrenheit) drop in temperature into the low- and mid-30s C (high 80s F) range.
Italian media reported that bathers were forced to leave a popular section of the southern Adriatic coast close to the town of Ugento in Puglia due to flames.
According to the national firefighters corps of Italy, firefighters have battled more than 3,200 wildfires in southern Italy since Sunday, with nearly half of them occurring in Sicily and nearly 900 in Puglia.
During a meeting with Greece's president, Katerina Sakellaropoulou, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said, "We can see that the climate crisis is here and affecting us all more strongly than perhaps even scientists had warned us about."
According to the EU agency that analyses satellite data, the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service, wildfire carbon emissions for July in Greece were the highest by a huge margin — totaling over 1 metric megatons and doubling the previous record — since record-keeping began 20 years ago.
Given the extreme weather in the area, senior scientist at the agency Mark Parrington said, "Unfortunately, it is not all that surprising." According to the data from the previous 20 years, "the observed intensity and estimated emissions show how unusual the scale of the fires has been for July."
At a ceremony held at the Defence Ministry in Athens, senior military personnel remembered the two pilots who died this week when a firefighting plane crashed.
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On the island of Evia, Lt. Pericles Stephanidis and Capt. Christos Moulas perished during a low-altitude water drop. Nikos Dendias, the defence minister, claimed they had displayed "self-denial in the line of duty."
"Today, Greece is in mourning. Their memories will endure, according to Dendias.
Mitsotakis went to Stephanidis' funeral on Thursday in northern Greece, and President Sakellaropoulou was scheduled to attend Moulas' funeral on Friday on the island of Crete.