The Greek prime minister has warned that devastating fires are made worse by climate change as the Evros fire rages on.
Greece's prime minister responded to criticism from environmentalists over a damaging wildfire that has been burning for almost two weeks by announcing the use of drones and the installation of forest temperature monitors to enhance preventive firefighting.
The deadliest wildfire in Europe this summer, which started in the northeastern province of Evros, raged on for a 14th day on Friday after claiming at least 20 lives.
The massive fire, which is the biggest single inferno ever recorded in the EU, has burnt lush woods and devastated hundreds of houses and livelihoods.
In the Mediterranean country, summertime wildfires are not uncommon, but the government claims that this year's conditions, which were particularly dry, windy, and hot and which scientists associate with climate change, have made them worse.
"Although we were better prepared than any other year, we faced an unprecedented combination of incidents," Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told parliament, citing a severe heatwave in July, Greece's longest in years, then unusually high winds.
He claimed that the government has started the process of acquiring more than 100 drones to track wildfires in real time. The installation of temperature monitors at historical sites and risky forests is also planned, and 500 new forest scientists and 1,000 additional firefighters will soon be hired, according to Mitsotakis.
After additional nocturnal evacuations, hundreds of firemen continued to fight the enormous Evros fire on Friday.
Why does the Greek government get criticism from environmentalists?
Environmentalists who support more aggressive international action to combat climate change have charged the Greek government of allocating more resources to fighting fires than to preventing them.
Tens of millions of euros, according to Mitsotakis, were spent on preventing wildfires this year, but that still wasn't enough.
"Is the climate crisis an alibi for everything? No, it's not," he told lawmakers, adding, however, that global warming had helped intensify wildfires that most of the time had been started by human negligence or arson.
The Evros fire has destroyed at least 812.6 square kilometers (313.8 square miles), more than New York City's 778.2 square kilometers (300.5 square miles), according to a post on the social networking platform X by the Copernicus Emergency Management Service.
At least 30% of Greece's protected Dadia-Lefkimi-Soufli Forest has been lost, according to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
Inquiring about the fire's origins and offering suggestions for assisting the forest's regrowth, Mitsotakis promised to consult with specialists from Europe.
