LONDON (Washington Insider Magazine) – On Wednesday, while Britain assessed the expense of its warmest day ever, a wildfire blazed in the mountains outside Athens, forcing hundreds to flee, including hospital patients. The fire was driven by gale-force winds.
This month, wildfires have wreaked havoc across Europe, starting in Portugal, Italy, Spain, France, Turkey, and Greece and being fanned by hot, dry conditions that experts associate with climate change.
Nearly 120 fire engines, 500 firemen, and 15 water-carrying airplanes battled to put out the fires on Mount Penteli, 16 miles north of the capital of Greece, according to NBC NEWS.
On Wednesday, the fire that started on Tuesday afternoon was still raging on many fronts.
Authorities said that nine communities were evacuated. Police assisted at least 600 inhabitants in evacuating fire-damaged areas while also evacuating one hospital and Athens’ National Observatory.
Around 300,000 acres of Greek woodland and forest were destroyed by flames last year as the nation endured its worst heatwave in thirty years.
In France, where firemen have been working to put out massive forest fires in the Gironde region’s southwest since July 12, Agriculture Minister Marc Fesneau said additional funding was required to combat such dangers.
Engineers rushed on Wednesday to repair train rails that crumbled in the heat as Londoners awoke to the wreckage of a day when temperatures surpassed 40C for the first time in Britain. Firefighters battled through the night to hose down flames.
Tuesday’s fires in the city burned dozens of homes and drove flames racing across tinderbox-dry grassland by the sides of highways and railroad tracks, making it the London Fire Brigade’s busiest day since World War Two.
A wildfire near the city of Peterborough in central England destroyed signaling equipment, canceling trains from London along the east coast of England at least until Wednesday noon. Overhead wires and tracks were damaged by other fires on the network.
In Germany, where water levels on the Rhine plunged even more, the weather also caused havoc with transportation networks, navigation officials warned on Wednesday. They said that as a result, shipping on the whole river in Germany south of Duisburg was being hampered and cargo vessels were being forced to travel with drastically reduced cargoes.
