Greece firefighting helicopters collide as battle to contain wildfires continues
Two helicopters collided and crashed while fighting a fire west of Athens, the Greek broadcaster ERT reported on Sunday. One aircraft went crashing to the ground, footage showed. The four crew members were recovered after the collision, the Greek fire department said later, adding that two were recovered safely, while the other two were unconscious. A large-scale search and rescue operation had…
Two Greek firefighting helicopters collided and crashed near the village of Psatha, west of Athens, as they battled a wildfire, reported Greek broadcaster ERT. The collision resulted in the recovery of four crew members, with two unhurt and two in an unconscious state. A large-scale search and rescue operation was initiated in the area.
Nearly 500 firefighters and 23 aircraft were initially deployed to combat the fires, but strong winds hindered efforts, preventing some aircraft from retrieving water from the sea. The 2018 Mati wildfire, Europe's deadliest in the 21st century, claimed 104 lives, leaving a grim reminder of the dangers. On the same day, flames from a severe fire only 50 km west of Athens stretched to within a few kilometers of Megara, a town with a population of approximately 36,000.
Initial estimates suggest that over 10,000 hectares of woodland, along with houses, barns, and agricultural land, have been destroyed since Friday. The fires have also claimed the lives of two firefighters in Crete and another in the Peloponnese peninsula. Meanwhile, France is grappling with a still-burning scar, four times the size of Paris, while Spain's major fires have ceased advancing.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has called for a national pact to combat wildfires, attributing their increasing destructiveness to climate change. Together, the fires in France and Spain have displaced around a third of a million people, leading to the evacuation of communities during the European summer. Europe experienced its worst fire year on record in 2025, with more than 10,000 square kilometers burned.
Over the past four decades, wildfires have resulted in nearly 800 deaths across the continent, according to the European Environment Agency. Europe, the world's fastest-warming continent, has witnessed temperatures rise more than twice the global average since the 1980s. Human-induced climate change made the extreme fire-weather conditions behind this year's French blazes at least twice as probable, scientists from World Weather Attribution concluded in a rapid analysis while the fires were still burning.
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