Brits on holiday in Greece are being urged to take care as wildfires continue to spread across the country – including close to the capital Athens.
Temperatures in south-east Europe are expected to hit 44°C today, in the latest stage of a heatwave that has remained a threat for several weeks.
Dry conditions and high winds are also helping to spread fires on both the Greek mainland and some islands.
In the town of Kryoneri, just over 12 miles north of Athens, residents have been ordered to evacuate their homes.
The blazes in the Attica region spread to Kryoneri, as well as the villages of Drosopigi and Agios Stefanos, after starting in Afidnes yesterday.
Since the beginning of this month, the Foreign Office has warned British tourists that they face a ‘high risk of wildfires’ by travelling to Greece during the summer season.
Such fires are ‘highly dangerous and unpredictable’, the website says, and the ‘situation can change quickly’.
Visitors to Greece are told to make sure their phone is registered to receive emergency alerts which will advise them if they are under threat.
Greek authorities have requested assistance from the European Union in fighting the fires, in the form of six firefighting planes from the bloc’s Civil Protection Mechanism.
Local news site Ekathemerini said at least five residents of Kryoneri, mostly elderly people with respiratory issues, were being treated by four ambulances.
Outside Attica, separate fires are spreading on Greece’s two largest islands, Euboea and Crete, as well as on the island of Kythera and in the south-west of the mainland.
Where else in Europe is facing wildfires?
The wider Balkans area is being heavily impacted by wildfires this year, including Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Bulgaria, Serbia and Kosovo.
To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web
browser that
supports HTML5
video
On Friday, three people were injured and 2,000 people evacuated from the area around the southern Albanian town of Delvina.
The town’s Deputy Mayor Brunilda Meleqi told Reuters a church and 10 uninhabited houses were destroyed in the fire.
Blazes have also hit Sicily in Italy and parts of Cyprus in the past week.
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.