A devastating out-of-control wildfire raging through northern Greece has left one person dead and forced hundreds of residents from their homes, as extreme weather conditions hamper hundreds of firefighters’ efforts to corral the spreading blaze. The victim’s remains were recovered Tuesday from a scorched patch of land near Liti, a small settlement located roughly 15 kilometers northwest of the country’s second-largest city, Thessaloniki. More than 100 firefighters have been deployed to the fire zone, backed by dozens of fire trucks and at least seven water-bombing aircraft, which were called in to tackle the inferno that stretched across a 5-kilometer active flame front by Tuesday evening. A woman was also hospitalized with hand burns after she attempted to put out small spot fires near her property, authorities confirmed.
The blaze ignited around 14:30 local time Tuesday, rapidly spreading from its starting point to adjacent forested areas amid unseasonably hot, windy and bone-dry conditions. Greek authorities had issued a high wildfire risk alert for the region hours before the fire broke out, forecasting conditions that would help any spark escalate quickly and lead to repeated flare-ups even after initial containment. By Tuesday night, all residents of Liti had been ordered to evacuate to safer areas, and the fire was advancing toward the neighboring village of Melissochori, with a small number of structures already sustaining damage, according to public broadcaster ERT. Investigators have not yet pinpointed the cause of the blaze, which is the latest in a string of summer wildfires to hit Greece this year.
As the country approaches its peak summer tourist season, the recurring wildfire threat underscores the growing risk Greece faces from increasingly frequent droughts and heatwaves linked to climate change. Summer wildfires have become a routine annual hazard across much of the country’s forested mainland and islands, forcing repeated large-scale evacuations and straining national firefighting resources year after year.