Firefighters in Greece 'pushed to the limit' as winds rage

Hundreds of firefighters in Greece on Saturday were being pushed to the limit to save a popular coastal resort and other areas as violent winds lashed the country, the civil protection minister said.

Gale-force winds created "extremely difficult conditions resulting in many cases where aircraft either cannot draw water or cannot carry out drops due to extreme turbulence, Evangelos Tournas said in a televised address.

Nearly 500 firefighters were battling blazes in the area of Porto Germeno on the Gulf of Corinth, some 70 kilometres (45 miles) northwest of Athens, the fire department said.

French and Romanian firefighters were assisting that effort, it added.

Some 60 forest and agricultural fires have broken out in the last 24 hours, the department said.

Nearly 100 firefighters were fighting another blaze in Aigialia in the northern Peloponnese, while another front in Phocis, central Greece was tying down another 64 firefighters.

The fire department's deputy spokesman Yiannis Artopios told state TV ERT that the wind was so strong that firefighters on the scene "couldn't even open their vehicle doors."

Though the winds eased later Saturday, the greater Athens area and nearby Voiotia and the island of Evia were under near maximum fire risk on Sunday, the civil protection ministry said.

- 'Burned completely' -

Dimos Economou, who lives close to Porto Germeno in nearby Vilia and came to help, said many homes had burned.

"Many homes have burned. As far as I know, there have been no fatalities, but many houses have been destroyed," he told AFP in Porto Germeno as the odour of smoke hung heavily in the air.

According to meteo.gr, the weather service of the National Observatory of Athens, winds up to 130 kilometres per hour were recorded Saturday.

"The fire was too strong, and the wind was too strong. There was nothing you could do, only watch the fire," said Minas Tsotdanis, a farmer from the village of Aspra Chomata near Porto Germeno.

"My house burned completely. Around 15 houses were burned. We are waiting for the fire to finish, and then we will go down to see what happened," he told AFP.

At the village of Agios Georgios above Porto Germeno, Kalomoira Karnaouri anxiously watched the fire but refused to leave her home.

"If we leave, we won't have a house anymore. No matter what anyone says, we're staying," she said.

The fire broke out Friday near the neighbouring coastal village of Agios Vasileios. Residents initially ignored a civil protection call to evacuate, and some 300 people had to be rescued by sea.

Up to 150 homes in Porto Germeno are believed to have been damaged by the fire, Dimitris Pagonis, a senior civil protection official from the nearby town of Mandra, told Skai TV.

- 'Inconceivable' damage -

Theodore Giannaros, a wildfire meteorologist and senior researcher at the National Observatory of Athens, on Saturday said the damage to the Porto Germeno area was "inconceivable".

"The area that has been affected appears to exceed 4-5,000 hectares," he said in a Facebook post.

Wildfires have flared in several parts of the country this week, including on the popular island of Crete, and three firefighters have so far lost their lives.

The fires in Crete have affected nearly 5,000 hectares on the island, according to meteo.gr. Another fire on the tourist island of Paros earlier this week burned nearly 1,000 hectares, it said.

Greece's geography, with its hundreds of islands, complicates the rapid deployment of emergency responders.

Hit hard by the climate crisis like the rest of the Mediterranean region, the country is plagued by wildfires every summer due to high temperatures, frequent heat waves and drought.

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis warned on Thursday that Greece -- which had been relatively spared from heat waves and major fires earlier this summer, unlike France and Spain -- was headed for "difficult days".