Wildfires burned in regions across southern Europe on Monday, fuelled by hot weather and strong winds, even as some northern countries cleaned up after a weekend of torrential rain and flooding.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis of Greece said firefighters have been battling about 50 wildfires in the past 24 hours, reports Reuters.
“I want to emphasize that August remains a difficult month,” he said. “That is why it is important for all of us, all state services, to be on absolute alert until the firefighting period is formally over.”
While no casualties have been reported, fire officials are blaming negligence on farms and construction sites as being responsible for several incidents in the southern Peloponnese region.
The Associated Press is reporting that raging wildfires in the central region of the Italian island of Sardinia have forced the evacuation of 900 people on Monday.
No deaths have been reported, while firefighting planes from France and Greece are reinforcing local aircraft battling blazes that have consumed around 20,000 hectares (nearly 50,000 acres) in the province of Oristano.
The Greek planes are from the resources of the rescEU program and the French ones from the European Civil Protection Pool, the European Commission said.
In an update reported by EuroNews, regional authorities said that 7,500 firefighters have been mobilized as well as 20 aircraft including seven Canadairs and 13 helicopters.
Christian Solinas, President of the Sardinia region, described the wildfires as “an unprecedented disaster.” In a statement, he wrote: Ten thousand hectares of vegetation destroyed, businesses and houses burned, livestock killed.”
In Spain, the northeastern region of Catalonia saw more than 1,500 hectares destroyed near Santa Coloma de Queralt by wildfires, forcing the evacuation of dozens of people over the weekend.
Southern Europe’s heatwave and wind-stoked wildfires are a sharp contrast to the torrential rainstorms that lashed northern countries from Austria to Britain after the catastrophic floods that devastated Germany and neighboring countries last week.
