Firefighters battled 300 different blazes across the southern regions of Italy, Calabria and Sicily in the night between Tuesday and Wednesday.
Seven Canadair planes flew over the area, which has had 70% more wildfires than in the previous year, the majority breaking out in Sicily, Puglia, Calabria and Sardinia
Devastating wildfires have ravaged large areas in southern Europe as the region endures its most extreme heatwave in three decades. Several people have died in Greece, Turkey and Italy, with many more injured. Huge fires also have been burning across Peru as well as northern Russia, with smoke from forest fires in Siberia reaching the north pole
As flames approached, Kimberly Price fled her beloved California hometown of Greenville. An hour later, most of it was gone
After weeks of fire, smoke and warnings, Kimberly Price and her beloved town had run out of time.
With wind driving the Dixie fire directly into Greenville, Price’s longtime partner, John Hunter, told her she needed to leave. Price, 58, had spent most of her life in the close-knit Sierra Nevada community. She couldn’t bear the thought of leaving, but the flames were everywhere.
Continue reading...A video has been released by the Italian carabinieri military police showing a hidden camera capturing an arsonist starting a fire in the countryside.
The video released on 6 August showed a person light a match and place it on the grass before running away near Montesarchio, a town 31 miles (49km) from Naples in Italy. The man was arrested.
In Italy, the civil protection authority warned on Monday of more fires to come as temperatures in parts of the country reach 45C.
Continue reading...Week of blazes forces evacuations and brings devastating scale of destruction to large areas of southern Europe
The devastating scale of destruction from a week of wildfires in Greece and Italy was being assessed as the EU mounted one of its largest firefighting operations ever and smoke from forest fires in Siberia reached the north pole.
As UN experts on Monday said global warming was advancing faster than feared and that humanity was “unequivocally” to blame, firefighters and local residents battled massive blazes on the island of Evia, east of Athens, for a seventh straight day.
Continue reading...Firefighters tackle blazes on two fronts on Evia as heatwave-driven devastation across southern Europe continues
Thousands of people have fled wildfires that are destroying vast swathes of pine forest and razing homes on Greece’s second-largest island, Evia, as devastating summer blazes rage from southern Europe to Siberia.
“We have ahead of us another difficult evening, another difficult night,” Greece’s deputy civil protection minister, Nikos Hardalias, said on Sunday, adding that nearly a week after the blazes started, strong winds were driving two major fire fronts in the north and south of the island.
Continue reading...The sky over the island of Evia turned red and orange as people boarded an evacuation ferry after days of fires in the area.
Dozens of wildfires have burned in Greece after the longest heatwave in 30 years, which sent temperatures soaring to 45C.
The Greek coastguard said three patrol boats, four navy vessels, one ferry and various tourist, fishing and private boats were on standby to carry out more potential evacuations from villages on the island's northern tip.
Continue reading...The city is surrounded by flames. On the ground, there are tales of heroism – and fear for the future
Little had prepared any of us on the Athens-bound flight for the sight of the great fire-induced clouds that swept either side of the plane as it made its descent on Friday.
News of the extreme heat engulfing Greece had spread beyond its borders all week, packaged in increasingly desperate language. Temperatures were breaking records few had ever imagined. If Monday was bad, then Tuesday was worse. In some parts of the country, the mercury had hit 47C (117F), with thermal cameras on drones recording the ground temperature in downtown Athens at 55C.
Continue reading...Every morning after moving here, I thought I must have done something right because I got to live in all this majesty. Then the Dixie fire took it away
My defiantly quirky, beautiful adopted hometown turned into a ghost town last night. There are so many things I could tell you about Greenville. There were over a thousand people and change, though the population sign still said 2,000.
We all have an opinion. About everything. We are a microcosm of America and often frustrated with each other. Greenville is filled with do-gooders, volunteers, retirees, hippies, bikers, and rednecks, ranchers, cowboys, and people who never felt like the town they were born in was quite the right fit for them. We were extended families and single moms and dads. We were drunks. We were sober. We tried not to be too judgmental lest someone judge us back. We were recent survivors of Paradise, too.
Continue reading...The fast-moving Dixie fire has continued to burn through northern California, leaving much of the gold rush town of Greenville in ashes. The three-week-old fire has burned more than 500 sq miles and destroyed dozens of homes. Greenville was previously damaged by a significant fire in 1881 but maintained some buildings that were more than a century old
Continue reading...Deaths occur in Turkey with Italy and Greece also badly hit and thousands evacuated
Eight people have died and thousands have been evacuated from their homes as extreme wildfires continue to rage in parts of southern Europe.
Related: The photo that has come to define Turkey’s wildfires
Continue reading...Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Thursday that emergency services faced a difficult night ahead as wildfires north of Athens leaped back to life and westerly winds were set to strengthen.
'Unfortunately the worst is yet to come and the night ahead seems menacing. Tomorrow we expect strong western winds in many areas of our country,' the Greek prime minister said in a special televised address.
Mitsotakis urged people to comply with evacuation orders and avoid unnecessary trave. Authorities warned of more blazes on Friday as temperatures hovered around 40C.
Continue reading...The northern California town of Greenville was devastated by the Dixie fire, currently the largest wildfire in the state. The town dates back to the Gold Rush era with buildings more than a century old. Firefighters did all they could against the flames but the fast-moving blaze left many structures in ashes
Continue reading...Image of boy watching firefighting plane in smoke-filled skies has been shared widely on Turkish social media
A little boy ready for a swim stops on the edge of the clear water, his gaze distracted by a firefighting plane flying low through a rust-red sky. For many, the photo – apparently taken by a Russian holidaymaker in Antalya last week – has come to symbolise the destruction wreaked by the ferocious wildfires that have consumed Turkey’s Mediterranean coastline over the past eight days.
More than 180 fires have killed eight people, devastated vast swathes of pine forest and agricultural land. On Wednesday fire crept closer to a thermal power plant as international firefighting teams used helicopters and water cannon and dug trenches to slow the spread of the flames.
Continue reading...Villages on Evia are evacuated as blaze rages across the island, and fires also threaten suburbs of Athens and historic Olympia
At least 150 houses have been destroyed by a raging fire that surrounded a monastery and a dozen villages on the Greek island of Evia, one of over 100 blazes burning in the country.
Firefighters were also continuing to battle a blaze near Athens on Thursday morning, while the mayor of Olympia, the birthplace of the Olympic Games, pleaded for help as flames threatened the site.
Continue reading...First Nations leaders seek more influence on how forests are managed, and the right to conduct prescribed burns
When Tyler Vander Griend saw thick black smoke rising above the village of Lytton in western Canada, his first instinct was to run towards the inferno.
But the flames were moving too fast, and Vander Griend, a lanky youth from the nearby Kanaka Bar First Nation, was forced to watch helplessly as fire consumed the community.
Continue reading...Thousands of residents in the northern outskirts of Athens have been forced to leave their homes as a forest wildfire reached residential areas. The blaze sent a huge cloud of smoke over Athens and prompted multiple evacuations near Tatoi, 13 miles to the north.
It comes as Greece experiences the worst heatwave since 1987, according to local authorities. Temperatures have reached 42C in parts of the Greek capital
Continue reading...The country’s most destructive fires in decades have razed forests and farmland across swathes of land next to the Mediterranean and Aegean seas
Continue reading...Wildfires break out across much of southern Europe, with temperature reaching 45C in Greece
Turkey has launched an international appeal for help in taming fires raging across the country that have killed eight people in recent days, as what has been described as one of the worst heatwaves in decades intensifies in south-east Europe.
Following criticism of the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, after it emerged that Turkey has no firefighting planes, authorities in Istanbul were promised water-dropping planes from the European Union. The country is battling deadly wildfires along its coastline for a sixth day.
Continue reading...At least five people were wounded and holidaymakers evacuated after wildfires devastated a pine wood near a beach in Pescara, Italy, as one of the worst heatwaves in decades swept across south-east Europe.
About 800 people were evacuated from their homes, including a convent of nuns, after a fire broke out in the 53-hectare (131-acre) Pineta Dannunziana nature reserve, as the fires continue to be active on different fronts
Continue reading...