The fire is raging in Corinthia, with the situation being described as “very difficult” and the firefighting forces are now fighting the battle with ground means after the aerial ones, at sunset, were withdrawn.
According to the Fire Service “there is not a single front but the forces are called upon to deal with many scattered outbreaks”. Strong forces with 490 firefighters, 16 groups of infantry units, 159 vehicles are operating at the scene.
The fronts are located in Sofiana, Spataneika, Psathochori, Eurostina and Mavro Oros, which are the most difficult, as stated by the Minister of Civil Protection, Vassilis Kikilias.
“We are facing a very difficult situation with the fire in Corinthia, it is not the first time we are tested in the Peloponnese,” said the minister. Mr Kikilias recommended “calmness, patience and hard work”.
Aircraft from the rescEU mechanism
The fiery front activated the EU mechanism. who sends planes to help. Specifically, after the activation by Greece of the Civil Protection Mechanism of the E.U. yesterday afternoon, the EU Emergency Response Coordination Center immediately mobilized three firefighting aircraft from the rescEU mechanism.
The E.U. it has also launched emergency satellite mapping through the Copernicus system to provide maps to local authorities. The European Commission continues to monitor the fire risk forecast and is ready to mobilize more help if needed, he said.
The fire started on Sunday (29/10) in the Rosena area and left behind two men aged 35 and 40 dead, burnt forests, crops and infrastructure. The extent of the fire front reached 32 km, while the flames reached close to the Patron-Corinth highway.
Why did the fire front “escape”?
An impassable spot, strong winds and abundant fuel adversely affected the development of the fire in Corinthia according to the president of the Panhellenic Federation of Fire Brigade Employees, Nikos Lavranos.
“Every forest fire gives you a reasonable window of time to be able to deal with. This is around 15 – 20 minutes. From then on, if the pyro-meteorological conditions favor the spread of the fire, this period of time is reduced. That is, there were three factors that adversely affected the progress of the fire. These were the topography, i.e. the difficult terrain of the area, the strong winds with the strong gusts that existed and of course the abundant fuel. The place where the fire started was like a jungle,” he said (ERT).
“The response of the fire brigade was immediate, but the place was so difficult and in fact very dangerous from the point of view that there were steep slopes, there were hidden places, canyons which were dangerous even for my own colleagues. There was only access from a rural road, which was really dangerous to send the fire brigade. The aerial means had a lot of difficulty because they were not able to have targeted, good drops due to both the geothermal charge that had developed and the intense smoke. The conditions were very difficult from the beginning,” he explained.
A first assessment
According to Vassilis Kikilia, the first survey refers to 40,000-50,000 acres. “We think that we have been able to protect a very large part of the properties of our fellow citizens so far. These villages that are of the order of 15, 20, 25, 30, 35 inhabitants and a little more in terms of their properties and their houses, but the magnitude of a disaster is something that is now part of the era, in those that we also live in the conditions we face”, he noted.
The smoke is 700km away from the focus of the fire
The size of the fire front is such that the smoke from Corinthia reached all the way to Crete as seen in a satellite image posted on his account on X by the meteorologist and director of the National Meteorological Service, Thodoris Kolidas.
As he points out, due to the maintenance of the north-west current, this three-day period the smoke is also spreading in a large part of South-Eastern Crete, about 700km away from the focus of the fire.
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