Cyprus awaits Greece’s call, fire chief says

Cyprus stands ready to offer Greece’s authorities “whatever they want” as the country battles ongoing wildfires in the west of its Attica region, fire brigade chief Nikos Longinos said on Monday. “Things are not easy. The intensity of the wind is unfortunately constantly carrying the fire forth. It is changing course, creating hot spots. A huge battle is happening. From our side, we have sent a message that we could send our own aeroplanes. We expect them to respond to us,” he told the Cyprus News Agency. He added that given the large extent of the fires, “larger aircraft are needed”. Regarding the prospect of sending ground-based firefighting means, he said that the small firefighting vehicles which Cyprus could send at short notice “would not be able to help, especially”. Related Articles • Cyprus ‘ready to assist’ Greece in battle against wildfires, Christodoulides says Nonetheless, he said, “we are in constant contact with Greece, and we are at their disposal for whatever they want”. Wildfires continued to rage in western Attica on Monday, with firefighters battling across an area which stretches almost the whole way from the Gulf of Corinth to the Gulf of Elefsina, while elsewhere in Greece, fires have also broken out in Kilkis, between Thessaloniki and the North Macedonian border, and on the Ionian island of Kefalonia. On Monday afternoon, Panagiotis Margetis, the mayor of the town of Megara, said that those fighting the fire were mildly optimistic regarding its course, “because today, the winds are quite low compared to the previous days and because aerial means were particularly effective in the morning”. As such, he said he hopes that the situation will become “more manageable” in the coming hours. Nonetheless, fires were rekindling elsewhere in the region. The villages of Ayios Nektarios and Kryo Pigadi, inland from the Gulf of Corinth, were said by Greek firefighters’ association chairman Kostas Tsigas to be “the most threatened”. “We will be there throughout the day, with the assistance of aerial means,” he told Greek public broadcaster ERT. A volunteer tries to extinguish a fire burning at a yard of a house in the settlement of Zachouli, Greece Two helicopters had collided on Sunday afternoon while attempting to fight the fire near the coastal town of Psatha, which is located around 65 kilometres west of Athens, with a Danish pilot and a Greek fire brigade liaison officer dying as one of the helicopters burst into flames and fell into a ravine. While damaged, the second helicopter was able to perform an emergency landing, and its British pilot and Greek co-coordinator survived. The Greek police said an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the helicopter crash was underway, and that the crash site had been secured. The fires are being exacerbated by windspeeds reaching as high as 100 kilometres per hour, with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis having warned on Sunday that those high winds could ground the country’s aerial firefighting fleet. “When the winds blow with such force, even the dozens of aircraft we have at our disposal cannot operate safely. There are moments when nature and the intensity of weather phenomena surpass any human planning and any operational capability,” he said. As such, he warned of “extremely difficult” days ahead. He also offered his condolences to the families of the two who died in Sunday’s helicopter crash, saying that the incident “fills us all with pain”.