LE PORGE, France — A deadly wildfire emergency that emptied towns across western Europe took a sharp turn Saturday, with its most dangerous front now tearing through a Greek seaside resort and trapping hundreds of people who could only escape by boat.
The crisis underscores a grim new normal for the continent. Europe has warmed at more than double the global average since the 1980s, according to the European Union’s Copernicus climate service. Protracted drought and rising heat leave forests bone-dry and primed for ignition, creating fires that spread faster and hit harder than ever before.
The shift eastward brought devastation to Porto Germeno, a popular getaway on the Gulf of Corinth northwest of Athens. Gale-force winds shoved flames through thick pine stands Saturday, blotting out the sun while nearly 500 firefighters struggled to defend the resort. Extreme turbulence stopped some water-dropping aircraft from scooping water or even approaching the fire line, Climate Crisis and Civil Protection Minister Evangelos Tournas said.
About 300 people fled by sea after the blaze erupted Friday near the coastal village of Agios Vasileios. Authorities issued additional evacuation orders Saturday as a separate fire east of Nafpaktos triggered alerts for at least four villages.
The scene carried a haunting weight for Greece. A 2018 wildfire at the coastal community of Mati killed 104 people, the deadliest such disaster in Europe this century. “A pristine forest, a paradise, was surrendered to the hands of the fire,” said Minas Tzortzanis, a 60-year-old local farmer. “There are no words to explain what has happened. Destruction. Total destruction.”
Theodore Giannaros, a wildfire meteorologist at the National Observatory of Athens, estimated the burn zone at roughly 40 to 50 square kilometers (15 to 19 square miles). No official figure had been released.
Meanwhile, western Europe finally caught its breath. In southwestern France, crews held the Gironde blaze within its perimeter, allowing about 198,000 evacuees to return home after what may rank as the country’s largest peacetime evacuation. The fire has consumed 420 square kilometers (162 square miles) of pine forest west of Bordeaux: an area four times the size of Paris. It remained contained but not yet “resolved,” leaving sections of the forested Cap Ferret peninsula evacuated because a nearby hot spot could cut the single road out.
Major fires in Spain halted their advance, and Portugal brought its main blaze under control. Yet a second French fire in the Mediterranean Var region proved stubborn. Declared resolved earlier in the week, it roared back Friday when mistral gusts revived embers and sent flames racing through dry hills as temperatures neared 42 C (108 F). “Quicker than a horse at full gallop,” the prefecture said of its spread. By Saturday, 1,300 firefighters still held defensive lines and 2,500 people could not go home.
For those returning to the Gironde zone, relief mixed with shock. Matthieu Plessis, a 40-year-old mechanic from Le Porge, drove through blackened forest to a family home that spanned seven generations. He forced open a gate whose key had burned and stood before a chimney and twisted metal frames. His bicycle-repair tools and machinery had vanished. “You don’t even know what was here anymore, or who lived where,” he said. “I don’t want to spend the next 10 years feeling sorry for myself.”
As Greece braces for more wind, the continent faces a season that keeps rewriting the boundaries of what fire crews can contain and what communities can endure.
