A wildfire broke out on Evia island, on Monday, between the villages of Petries and Krieza on the eastern side of the island.
Residents of Krieza and Kokkina, received a 112 message asking them to evacuate towards safer areas.
More than 130 firefighters with 43 vehicles, 5 infantry units, 16 aircraft and 8 helicopters, of which two are coordinating have been dispatched to the area.
Authorities closed the road connecting central and southern Evia.
Greek PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis warned recently of a difficult summer ahead for the country.
He noted that the battle against the fires would last a long time, as Greece was only now entering the heart of the firefighting season, and that “it will certainly not be won without the assistance of the citizens, especially in the field of prevention.”
Last winter was the warmest since modern records began being kept in 1960, according to the National Observatory of Athens, which analyzed European Union satellite data. The six warmest Greek winters on record have occurred in the past decade.
2021 wildfire ravaged Evia
Several wildfires have hit the island of Evia in recent years, especially in 2021 when more than 50,000 hectares of woodland – almost 15 percent of the island’s surface area – burned over the course of ten days.
The fire swept through village after village, from one side of the island to the other, taking both residents and tourists by surprise. Hundreds of animals lost their lives, while houses, olive groves and beehives were burnt to the ground.
Evia was particularly hard-hit by the fires since it is one of the least wealthy of all the Greek islands, and many residents depend on its woodlands for their livelihoods.
From the first moment of the awful fires of August 2021 on Evia island, Greek Reporter deployed its team in Greece not only to report on the disaster of epic proportions, but also to mobilize the Greek Diaspora and Philhellenes around the world to offer support to the fire victims.
People all around the world were stunned by the magnitude of the Northern Evia fires, watching the disturbing images on their TV sets day after day during the month of August — which set temperature records even before the fires broke out.
A moving photo of an elderly lady taken during the fires that devastated the island of Evia, Greece was chosen as one of the four Best Photos of 2021 by TIME magazine.
Related: Evia Fires: The Largest Environmental Catastrophe in Greece
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