Greece blaze is ‘largest wildfire ever recorded in EU’

A forest blaze in Greece is "the largest wildfire ever recorded in the EU" and the bloc is mobilizing nearly half its firefighting air wing to tackle it, a European Commission spokesman said Tuesday.

Firefighters have been battling the flames for 11 days in northeastern Greece which have killed at least 20 people and pose an "ecological disaster".

Eleven planes and one helicopter from the EU fleet have been sent to help Greece counter the fire, north of the city of Alexandroupoli, along with 407 firefighters, spokesman Balazs Ujvari said.

The EU's civil protection service said the fire has burnt over 810 square kilometers (310 square miles) -- an area bigger than New York City.

"This wildfire is the largest in the EU since 2000, when the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS) began recording data," the service said.

Since it began on August 19, the bodies of 20 people have been found, 18 of them migrants including two children that were discovered in a region often used as an entry point from neighboring Turkey.

Greece's fire service told AFP that the blaze was "still out of control" in the northeast region's Dadia National Park, a major sanctuary for birds of prey.

A large fire previously hit the park in 2011, forest ranger Dora Skartsis said, lamenting that "everything that was regenerated since has been lost" in recent days.

"We're talking about a huge ecological disaster. The image is tragic," said Skartsis, who also heads a biodiversity protection group in the region.

The forest also plays a vital economic role in supporting logging, beekeeping and tourism activities in Evros, one of the poorest regions of the country.

(Source: AFP)

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