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Three large wildfires churned across Greece on Saturday, with one threatening whole towns and cutting a line across Evia, the country’s second-largest island, isolating its northern part.

Others engulfed forested mountainsides and skirted ancient sites, leaving behind a trail of destruction that one official described as “a biblical catastrophe.”

A flotilla of 10 ships — two Coast Guard patrols, two ferries, two passenger ships and four fishing boats — waited at the seaside resort of Pefki, near the northern tip of Evia, ready to evacuate more residents and tourists if needed, a Coast Guard spokeswoman told The Associated Press, on customary condition of anonymity.

Firefighters were fighting through the night to save Istiaia, a town of 7,000 in northern Evia, as well as several villages, using bulldozers to open up clear paths in the thick forest.

The fire on Evia forced the hasty Friday night evacuation of about 1,400 people from a seaside village and island beaches by a motley assortment of boats after the approaching flames cut off other means of escape.

The other dangerous fires were one in Greece’s southern Peloponnese peninsula, near Ancient Olympia and one in Fokida, in the Central Greece Region, north of Athens. The fire in Ancient Olympia moved east, away from the ancient site, threatening villages in a sudden flare-up Saturday afternoon.

At least two people, including a volunteer firefighter, have been died because of the wildfires.

Firefighters and equipment from France, Spain, Ukraine, Cyprus, Croatia, Sweden, Israel, Poland, Romania, Switzerland and the United States have come to assist after Greece activated the European Union’s emergency support system.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Saturday that securing aid for everyone affected by the wildfires will be “my first political priority.”

“When this nightmarish summer has passed, we will turn all our attention to repairing the damage as fast as possible, and in restoring our natural environment again,” he said.

HelpTurkey vs Strong Turkey

In Turkey, fires described as the worst in decades have swept through southern regions, killing eight people.

The top Turkish forestry official said 217 fires had been brought under control since July 28 in over half of the country’s provinces, but firefighters still worked Saturday to tame six fires in two provinces.

The wildfires have unleashed a political storm with the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan heavily criticized for its handling of the crisis and for rejecting several offers of outside assistance.

Erdogan has rejected the criticism and accused opponents of politicizing the crisis. He has also condemned the use of the hashtag #HelpTurkey, seemingly outraged his country could use help.

“In response to this, there is only one thing to say: Strong Turkey,” Erdogan said of the #HelpTurkey tweets, which he called “terror by lies propagated from America, Europe and some other places.”

In the wake of this, the prosecutor’s office said it would investigate whether the tweets were intended to “create anxiety, fear and panic among the population, and to humiliate the Turkish government”.

At the same time, the media regulator threatened to fine TV stations that continued to broadcast live images of the blaze and publish articles “that generate fear and worry the population”.

Most stations complied with the order, reducing their coverage of the fires that killed eight people and destroyed large areas of forest along the coast.

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A series of lightning strikes — along with warm temperatures and dry conditions last month — reportedly started a number of the blazes.

One of America’s most popular national parks, Yosemite, was closed Thursday as wildfires continued to scorch the West Coast, filling the air with toxic smoke and prompting evacuations in Southern California, officials said.

The federal government-run air quality monitor, Airnow.gov, showed that pollutant levels in the park were so high that they exceeded the site’s index, CBS reported.

Dangerous air quality is expected in the park, which is spread across nearly 1,200 square miles in the Sierra Nevadas, for the next several days, the National Park Service said. It isn’t clear when Yosemite will reopen.

Two wildfires were burning in or near the park, including the massive Creek Fire to the south. The 244,756-acre blaze ignited this month, trapping dozens of people at a campground in Sierra National Forest and destroying hundreds of homes and other buildings.

The fire was 18 percent contained Thursday.

Rain also carries the risk of flash flooding in areas that have burned, according to the National Weather Service.

To the south, the Bobcat Fire continued to burn across thousands of acres of national forestland in the San Gabriel Mountains, just north of Los Angeles.

While firefighters have so far kept it from damaging a historic observatory in Angeles National Forest, the fire roared overnight toward Juniper Hills, an unincorporated community of about 400 homes in the San Gabriel foothills.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department issued evacuation orders for Juniper Hills and other nearby communities Thursday afternoon.

A record 3.4 million acres have burned in California this year, a staggering number that officials and experts have attributed to climate change and a buildup of dried vegetation. Twenty-five people have died in the state, and 5,400 structures have burned.

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In Iran, areas protected by the DOE cover 17 million hectares which fall into four categories: national parks (22 sites), wildlife refuges (34 sites), protected areas (93 sites), and national nature monuments (20 sites).

He went on to say that so far wildfires broke out in 14 provinces, mostly in areas located near the Zagros foothills, such as of Kohgiluyeh and Boyerahmad, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari, Lorestan, Fars, northern provinces and Tehran.

Two week earlier, raging wildfire erupted in Khaeez protected area in Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad province, southwestern Iran, which affected some 1,783 hectares of the lands.
Provinces of Kalgiluyeh and Boyer Ahmad, Tehran set record highs for the wildfires, IRNA news agency quoted Jamshid Mohabbat Khani as saying on Sunday.

 Heavy rainfalls increase wildfire risk

Torrential rains over the past few months, had positive consequences like saturating the wetlands and reservoirs, however, led to some natural incidents like flooding or wildfires, as the plants and vegetation has grown in vast areas of forests and rangelands which soon turned dry due to temperature rise which enhances the possibility of massive fires.

Based on the latest data published by National Drought Warning and Monitoring Center affiliated to Iran’s Meteorological Organization, since the current crop year (September 23, 2018), precipitation in the country increased to 310.2 from 159.9 millimeters in the previous water year, demonstrating a 94.9 percent rise. The amount also raised in comparison to the long-term average of 222.2 mm, amounting to 39.6 percent.

Human errors leading cause of massive fires

Mohabbat Khani also highlighted that 62 cases of wildfires caused 400 hectares of the protected areas to turn into ashes since past three months, out of which 8 cases sparked by lightening.

While most of the fires were human-caused or ignited due to litter and waste left in the nature by the humans, somehow direct or indirect role of human is the leading cause of such incidents, he added.

Two human errors are the most important causes of wildfires, one is throwing glass bottles on the side of the roads or inside the forests which magnifies a ray of sunlight, igniting grass around it, and the other one is leaving a fire unextinguished; some of the people camping in the nature do not ensure that the fire is completely put out, he further explained.

In such situation, extinguishing the massive fire is difficult because the dry plants flare easily and quickly, he noted, adding, this year, 18 rangers burned during fire extinguishing operations; rangers are not firefighters having heat-resistance clothes, so they are in danger.

Although, we have provided them with some facilities to put out the fire, people must well cooperate to reduce the danger, he added.

Public co-op, awareness, major way to prevent wildfires

Mohabbat Khani further called on the people to be cautious while camping in the environment and take safety precautions as well as not leaving the waste in the environment.

Wildfire in impassable areas makes any fire-fighting operation almost impossible and only helicopters could reach the area, which have a long process to use aerial firefighting, in addition, the helicopters are not allowed at nights, he also lamented.

This year, with expanded vegetation cover wildfire risk has highly increased which is unprecedented in past 30 years, he also stated.

The DOE has employed its whole capacity as a “rapid response team” to combat wildfires, but still the main way to overcome such occurrences is raising public awareness and cooperation, he concluded.

In early-May, Hamid Zohrabi, DOE deputy chief for natural environment and biodiversity directorate, said that in the current year (started on March 21), above-normal precipitation and increased vegetation covers can dramatically heighten the risks of wildfires, however, due to slower-than-usual temperature rise in many regions in the country it is projected that wildfire season might be delayed.

Qasem Sabz’ali, commander of the forest protection unit of the Forests, Range, and Watershed Management Organization, said in April 2018 that some 15,000 hectares of forests burn in wildfires annually in Iran that 95 percent of them are caused by humans, ISNA reported.

Forest wildfire brings heavy economic burden amounting to 560 million rials (about $13,000) per hectare for the country, he added.

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