Many French return home after wildfires, but new blazes pop up
Wildfire conditions have improved across western Europe, allowing many French residents to return home, though the crisis has shifted to Greece. Experts link the increased intensity and frequency of these fires to climate change and rising temperatures in the region.
Why it matters
The increasing frequency of extreme weather events in Europe poses significant challenges for emergency services and highlights the urgency of climate adaptation strategies.
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LE PORGE, France (AP) — Europe’s wildfire emergency eased across much of western Europe on Saturday, but its most dangerous front shifted to Greece, where gale-force winds drove flames through a seaside resort, forced hundreds to flee by sea and hampered firefighting aircraft.
For Greece, the danger carried grim resonance: a 2018 wildfire at the seaside community of Mati , near Athens, killed 104 people, making it Europe’s deadliest wildfire this century.
In southwestern France, firefighters held a vast wildfire within its perimeter, with about 198,000 people now allowed home after what may have been the country’s largest peacetime evacuation .
Major fires in Spain were also no longer advancing, and Portugal’s main blaze was under control.
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