Wildfires in the central Greek prefecture of Magnesia claimed the lives of two people on Wednesday, according to Ekathimerini.
A 69-year-old woman died while she was stuck in a camping trailer in the rural mountain area of Platanos, while a 45-year-old man was killed as he was taking his animals to higher ground in Agios Georgios Ferron, west of Volos.
Police have arrested a man suspected of starting the fire that killed the woman in the trailer and he was being questioned in connection with the other fires in the area too.
This latest deaths come after Greek authorities confirmed on Tuesday the deaths of three other people from wildfires that have been raging across Greece for a week.
Two pilots were killed when their Canadair CL-215 plane fighting wildfires crashed on Tuesday on the island of Evia, east of Athens.
Meanwhile, the body of a 41-year-old stockbreeder who had been missing since Sunday was found burned in a shack in a hard-to-reach area on Evia.
This brings the total fatalities from Greece’s wildfire season to five so far.
Wildfires erupt in central Greece:
More wildfires broke out Wednesday in the central mainland of Greece, triggering a precautionary evacuation order for some outskirts of the town of Lamia.
Further north, villages were also evacuated as a precaution near the city of Volos.
Fires had largely died down on the Greek island of Rhodes, where more than 20,000 foreign visitors and locals fled seaside hotels and homes over the weekend.
Firefighters were still trying to put out a wall of flames close to a mountainous area in Rhodes’ south.
Source: Ekathimerini and Reuters.
