ATHENS, Greece—Fire department officials in Greece arrested two men Saturday for allegedly deliberately setting fires, adding up to a total of 165 people arrested for fire-related charges since the start of the fire prevention season.
One man was arrested on the island of Evia for allegedly setting fire to dried grass in the Karystos area. The fire department said the man confessed to having set four other fires in the area in July and August.
A second man arrested in the Larissa area of central Greece also was accused of intentionally setting fire to dried vegetation.
By Friday, fire department officials had arrested 163 people on fire-related charges since the start of the fire prevention season, government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis said, including 118 for negligence and 24 for deliberate arson. The police had made a further 18 arrests, he said.
Officials have blamed arson for several fires in Greece over the past week. It remains unclear what sparked the country’s largest blazes, including one in the northeastern region of Evros, the location of nearly all the fire-attributed deaths, and another on the fringes of Athens.
Although most new fires were controlled in their early stages, some grew to massive blazes that have consumed homes and vast tracts of forest.
“Some … arsonists are setting fires, endangering forests, property, and above all human lives,” Climate Crisis and Civil Protection Minister Vassilis Kikilias said Thursday. “What is happening is not just unacceptable, but despicable and criminal.”
The minister said nine fires were set in the space of four hours Thursday morning in the Avlona area in the northern foothills of Mount Parnitha on the northwestern fringes of Athens that is one of the capital’s last green areas.
“You are committing a crime against the country,” Mr. Kikilias said. “We will find you. You will be held accountable to justice.”
Later on Thursday, police arrested a 45-year-old man on suspicion of arson for allegedly setting at least three fires in the Avlona area. A search of his home revealed kindling, a fire torch gun, and pine needles, police said.
Greece has been plagued by daily outbreaks of dozens of fires over the past week as gale-force winds and hot, dry summer conditions combined to whip up flames and hamper firefighting efforts. Across the country, firefighters were battling 105 wildfires on Sunday, with 46 of them having broken out in the 24 hours between Saturday evening and Sunday evening, the fire department said.
In Greece’s northeastern regions of Evros and Alexandroupolis, a massive wildfire believed to have caused 20 of the 21 wildfire-related deaths in the past week, was burning for a ninth day.
The blaze, where smaller fires combined to form one of the largest single wildfires ever to have struck a European Union country, has decimated vast tracts of forest and burned homes in outlying areas of the city of Alexandroupolis.
On Sunday, 295 firefighters, seven planes, and five helicopters were tackling flare-ups that were creating new fire fronts, triggering evacuation orders for two villages, one in the Evros region, and another in the Rodopi region.
The wildfire has scorched 77,000 hectares (297 square miles) of land and had 120 active hotspots, the European Union’s Copernicus Emergency Management Service said Sunday.
Copernicus is the EU space program’s Earth observation component and uses satellite imagery to provide mapping data.
On the northwestern fringes of the Greek capital, another major wildfire burning for days was now limited to flare-ups and was being tackled by 160 firefighters, one plane, and three helicopters. The fire has already scorched homes and part of a national park on Mount Parnitha, one of the last green areas near Athens.
A third major wildfire started on Saturday on the Cycladic island of Andros and was still not under control Sunday, with 73 firefighters, two planes, and two helicopters dousing the blaze. Lightning strikes are suspected of having sparked that wildfire. Flare-ups were also occurring in a large wildfire in the central region of Viotia, the fire department said.
With firefighting forces stretched to the limit, Greece has called for help from other European countries. Germany, Sweden, Croatia, and Cyprus have sent aircraft, while dozens of Romanian, French, Czech, Bulgarian, Albanian, Slovak, and Serb firefighters are helping on the ground.
Firefighters found 18 bodies in a forest on Tuesday, one on Monday, and another Thursday. The 18 included two boys aged between 10 and 15. With nobody reported missing in the area, authorities believe the victims might have been migrants who recently crossed the border from Turkey.
Greece’s Disaster Victim Identification Team was activated to identify the remains, and a telephone hotline set up for potential relatives of the victims to call. A man reportedly trying to save his livestock from advancing flames in central Greece also died on Monday.
Greece imposes wildfire prevention regulations, typically from the start of May to the end of October, to limit activities such as the burning of dried vegetation and the use of outdoor barbecues.
