Sharjah24 - AFP: Greece ordered evacuations on Wednesday for areas near two central cities after new blazes broke out during a punishing heatwave and as deadly fires hit the Mediterranean.
Thousands of people have evacuated in the region this week as fires also flared in Croatia and Italy, and flames killed 34 in Algeria in extreme heat that has left landscapes tinder dry.
New blazes threatened central Greece Wednesday, prompting orders for locals to leave near the industrial centre of Volos and outside Lamia.
"It's hell here. There are four different fronts... stretching across a combined 10 kilometres (six miles)," Dorothea Kolindrini, a deputy governor from an area included in the orders, told state TV ERT.
Scientists from the World Weather Attribution group said this week the heatwaves that have hit parts of Europe and North America this month would have been almost impossible without human-caused climate change.
The European Union's climate observatory Copernicus on Wednesday said smoke emissions from wildfires in Greece have been the highest for this period of time in the last 21 years.
Greece has battled over 600 fires in the past 12 days, the government said Wednesday.
Temperatures were expected to hit between 43-46 degrees Celsius (109-115 degrees Fahrenheit) in central and southern Greece, according to the national meteorological service.
"Today is the most difficult day in terms of the heat, complicating the fight against existing fires and making new fire outbreaks more likely," fire department spokesman Ioannis Artopios told Skai radio.
Storms are forecast for Thursday.
Greece is used to summer heatwaves, but is experiencing one of the longest ones in recent years, according to experts.
The civil protection ministry has warned of an extreme danger of fire in six of the country's 13 regions on Wednesday.
Wildfires, which have been burning in several parts of the country for more than 10 days, were ravaging the tourist islands of Rhodes, Corfu and Evia.
The EU crisis management commissioner's office on Wednesday said over 490 firefighters and seven planes had been deployed to different areas in Greece under the bloc's civil protection mechanism.
At least 100 firefighters were working to contain the flames on Evia, where on Tuesday two pilots were killed when their water bomber aircraft crashed.
The body of a third victim was also found on Evia.
Authorities have evacuated tens of thousands of people from fire areas in Greece, including many tourists.
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