There is a state of emergency in Rhodes and Corfu. And devastating wildfires are also raging in other parts of Greece. It is a mixture of several causes that leads to disaster. The danger is far from over.
These are nightmarish scenes that tourists describe in the Greek media. The walls of fire and thick black smoke remind a British tourist of the description of hell in Dante’s Divine Comedy. He is one of many people who had to be rescued from the massive fires raging in Greece.
Long periods of intense heat, combined with winds in excess of force five – this is a catastrophic cocktail that proved explosive repeatedly in the Greek summer. These days, however, it’s not just very, but extremely hot in Greece, and for an extremely long period of time. The result: devastating forest fires.
The temperature in the Mediterranean country has been rising steadily since mid-July, temperatures in excess of 40 degrees Celsius have been measured since last Tuesday – and last Tuesday, July 18th, it became clear that the 2023 “fire season” would be particularly dangerous this time around.