Deputy Minister for Civil Protection and Crisis Management at Ministry of Citizens Protection Nikos Hardalias said on a TV press briefing that wildfires spread to the south of the country.

Around 500 people, mainly holidaymakers, fled the village of Niborio, before an official evacuation order was given.

He indicated that the same thing happened with 210,000 inhabitants of the Euboea Island, off the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, where a big wildfire ravaged a forest.

‘The fire with the help of the wind moved south and as a result the Fire Brigade officer in charge asked for the preemptive evacuation of the Niborio inhabitants. The blaze rages on but for the moment, no houses or infrastructure are under threat’, Hardalias said.

Over 60 firefighters and 23 fire engines were battling the blazes as well as six helicopters and seven fire airplanes.

Four fires, all in areas of dried grass, were also burning simultaneously in different locations in the western Attica towns of Elefsina and Aspropyrgos on Saturday, while a forest fire in Varnavas, in the northeast of Attica, was also raging but without threatening homes.

As part of an agreement between the Greek Ministry of Citizen Protection and the Russian Aeronautical Company Ilyushin, a Be-200ES plane, the only jet seaplane in the world, arrived in Greece to put out the wildfires.

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