Wildfires Battled in Peloponnese, Karditsa and Serres as High Risk Covers Half of Greece

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Athens, August 20, 2026 — Water-dropping aircraft and ground crews fought three wildfires across mainland Greece on Thursday, as roughly half the country remained under a category-3 fire risk on the five-level scale.

The Fire Service reported four aircraft supporting 35 firefighters containing a blaze near the village of Kremasti in the Sparta region of the southern Peloponnese. Two additional fires burned through forest and farmland near Palamas in the central Karditsa region and Paralimni in the northern Serres area.

Civil protection authorities have placed most of the country on category-3 risk for Friday. The elevated alert covers nearly the entire Peloponnese, central Greece including the Greater Athens region and the island of Evia, northwestern Greece, Crete, and almost all the Aegean islands.

In recent weeks, wildfires nationwide have claimed seven lives, destroyed scores of homes and blackened thousands of hectares of forest. Greece faces severe fire seasons every summer when hot, dry weather leaves vegetation highly flammable and strong seasonal winds rapidly spread any ignition. Negligence is cited as the cause in most cases.

The 2018 fire that swept through the coastal town of Mati east of Athens, killing 104 people, remains a stark reminder of the country’s vulnerability.

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