Firefighters killed in Greece as European wildfire struggle continues
Video from Lège-Cap-Ferret, France, shows firefighters battling wildfires as more than 200,000 people remain displaced and nearly a quarter-million acres have burned.
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July 29 (UPI) -- Three firefighters died while fighting wildfires in parts of Greece on Wednesday as extreme heat continues to cause deadly problems with fires throughout southern Europe.
Even as wildfires in Spain and France began to stabilize, a heat wave in the region caused worries of flare-ups.
The string of fires runs from the Atlantic coast to the eastern Mediterrean and from the Scottish highlands to the south of Spain, The Guardian reported. Temperatures reached more than 100 degrees Fahrenheit on Wednesday in Bordeaux, France, where firefighters worked to keep a wildfire from reaching the suburbs, and nearly as high in Madrid.
In Greece, two firefighters died when they were trapped while fighting a blaze in the Rethymno area of Crete, BBC News reported. In addition to the several fast-spreading fires on Crete, wildfires also broke out on the islands of Lesbos and Paros and in the south of the Greek mainland, where a third firefighter died.
A fire burns through low-lying vegetation Wednesday in Krya Vrysi, Rethymno, Crete. More than 150 firefighters, supported by four helicopters and four fire-fighting aircraft, were deployed to tackle the blaze. Two firefighters died while battling the fire, according to the Greek Fire Service. (Photo Credit: Nikos Chalkiadakis/EPA)
Issues also spread to Turkey, where a main highway had to be closed and a hospital evacuated because of wildfires.
"The fire is like David against Goliath," said Eric Brocardi, spokesperson of France's national firefighters' federation.
Four French firefighters have died in recent weeks, and 2,000 have been sent to the Gironde region, which has been devastated by fires between the coast and Bordeaux. CNN said Wednesday that the fires traveling through southwestern France were powerful enough to create a fire-generated thunderstorm.
Smoke from a massive wildfire turned the sky an eerie shade of orange over Lacanau-Océan in southwest France on July 24.
Some evacuation orders have been lifted in Spain, letting about 44,000 people go back home if they can.
"The situation continues to evolve favorably, while exercising the utmost prudence, the utmost caution, and every possible preventive measure, but it remains favorable," Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez told reporters early Wednesday.
Spanish firefighters are focused on containing the wildfires and cooling down burned areas to prevent flare-ups, he added.
In Portugal, 400 firefighters were working on a large fire in the northeastern Guarda area.
Maria Zuber, head of the European Union Emergency Response Coordination Center, said countries further east could be next.
"The next risk, it's already moving to Greece and also central Europe," Zuber told reporters early Wednesday, CNN reported.
"Greece for the moment was spared, and now we see that it will go to Greece. Italy will face risk at the beginning of August, and we will need to see what will happen with the Iberian Peninsula, because if [it is] there as well, we will have all Europe on fire," she said.
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