Overnight, walls of flames raged through forests, prompting authorities to evacuate complete villages and hospitals as first responders battled to tame the fire for days.
Hundreds of firefighters from Greece and across the European Union were deployed along with dozens of aircraft.
The hot, tinder-dry conditions, which scientists said were made worse by climate change, created one of Greece’s hottest summers on record and the perfect conditions for blazes that killed at least 18 people.
While the total number of fires recorded through Wednesday this year, 51, is lower than last year’s total of 66, the blazes have burned almost nine times more land.
The fires were the largest ever faced by the European Union, Janez Lenarčič, the European commissioner for crisis management, said in August.
Scientists say extreme weather phenomena are only going to be more common as the effects of climate change worsen.
When all was over in early September, residents had begun to return to what remained of their villages only to be battered by record rainfall.
The floods
Storm Daniel, the deadly cyclone that flooded areas of the Mediterranean from Greece to Libya in early September, became one of the most fierce storms Greece had ever seen, sweeping houses off their foundations with rainfall that lasted three days and claimed at least 17 lives.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
