A helicopter fills water from the sea during a wildfire, near Gennadi village, on the Aegean Sea island of Rhodes, southeastern Greece, on Thursday, July 27, 2023. The wildfires have raged across parts of the country during three successive Mediterranean heat waves over two weeks, leaving five people dead. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

People play with a ball in front of a burnt forest at a beach, near Gennadi village, on the Aegean Sea island of Rhodes, southeastern Greece, on Thursday, July 27, 2023. The wildfires have raged across parts of the country during three successive Mediterranean heat waves over two weeks, leaving five people dead. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

Firefighters and volunteers try to extinguish a wildfire in the town of Nea Anchialos, near Volos city, central Greece, Thursday, July 27, 2023. Wildfires caused explosions at an air force ammunition dump in central Greece on Thursday that had been safely evacuated in advance, as strong gusts of wind caused flare-ups around the country. (Tatiana Bolari/Eurokinissi via AP)

A burnt cactus stands on a hill near Gennadi village, on the Aegean Sea island of Rhodes, southeastern Greece, on Thursday, July 27, 2023. The wildfires have raged across parts of the country during three successive Mediterranean heat waves over two weeks, leaving five people dead. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

Residents and tourists evacuate with the support of vessels from the town of Nea Anchialos, near Volos city, central Greece, Thursday, July 27, 2023. Wildfires caused explosions at an air force ammunition dump in central Greece on Thursday that had been safely evacuated in advance, as strong gusts of wind caused flare-ups around the country. (Tatiana Bolari/Eurokinissi via AP)

Boats arrive to help the evacuation of residents and tourists from the town of Nea Anchialos, near Volos city, central Greece, Thursday, July 27, 2023. Wildfires caused explosions at an air force ammunition dump in central Greece on Thursday that had been safely evacuated in advance, as strong gusts of wind caused flare-ups around the country. (Tatiana Bolari/Eurokinissi via AP)

Residents and tourists evacuate with the support of vessels from the town of Nea Anchialos, near Volos city, central Greece, Thursday, July 27, 2023. Wildfires caused explosions at an air force ammunition dump in central Greece on Thursday that had been safely evacuated in advance, as strong gusts of wind caused flare-ups around the country. (Tatiana Bolari/Eurokinissi via AP)

Tourists enjoy the beach and the sea in Lindos, on the Aegean Sea island of Rhodes, southeastern Greece, on Thursday, July 27, 2023. The wildfires have raged across parts of the country during three successive Mediterranean heat waves over two weeks, leaving five people dead. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

Local residents stand on the road during a wildfire in the town of Nea Anchialos, near Volos city, central Greece, Thursday, July 27, 2023. Wildfires caused explosions at an air force ammunition dump in central Greece on Thursday that had been safely evacuated in advance, as strong gusts of wind caused flare-ups around the country. (Tatiana Bolari/Eurokinissi via AP)

Abandoned sunbeds and umbrellas stand at the beach as a burnt hill is seen in the background after a wildfire, near Gennadi village, on the Aegean Sea island of Rhodes, southeastern Greece, on Thursday, July 27, 2023. The wildfires have raged across parts of the country during three successive Mediterranean heat waves over two weeks, leaving five people dead. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

Burnt cars are seen after a wildfire near Gennadi village, on the Aegean Sea island of Rhodes, southeastern Greece, on Thursday, July 27, 2023. The wildfires have raged across parts of the country during three successive Mediterranean heat waves over two weeks, leaving five people dead. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

Burnt cars are seen after a wildfire near Gennadi village, on the Aegean Sea island of Rhodes, southeastern Greece, on Thursday, July 27, 2023. The wildfires have raged across parts of the country during three successive Mediterranean heat waves over two weeks, leaving five people dead. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

Tourists walk in Lindos, on the Aegean Sea island of Rhodes, southeastern Greece, on Thursday, July 27, 2023. The wildfires have raged across parts of the country during three successive Mediterranean heat waves over two weeks, leaving five people dead. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

Source: AP News

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On Thursday, wildfires raging across parts of Greece has forced the evacuation of an air force base at the seaside town of Nea Anchialos, near the port city of Volos, as well as 12 settlements in the area, Greek national news agency AMNA reported.

The relocation of Hellenic Air Force aircraft became necessary after wildfire triggered a series of massive explosions overnight at an ammunition depot, breaking windows and damaging buildings in the vicinity.

The wildfires in the greater Volos area have posed the toughest challenge for firefighters for the past two days, according to the Fire Brigade.

Across Greece, 83 new fires were reported on Thursday. Firefighters are battling a total of 124 wildfires nationwide in extremely difficult conditions, according to the Fire Brigade.

The situation has improved on Rhodes Island where nearly 20,000 people were evacuated during the weekend as the fires threatened residential zones after scorching forests and farmland.

The Climate Crisis and Civil Protection Ministry allowed some tourists and the residents of a dozen towns and villages in eastern Rhodes to return to their homes and accommodations.

Five people have died in the wildfires this week. The charred bodies of two civilians were found on Wednesday near Volos.

The bodies of three other victims, a shepherd and two pilots, were discovered on Evia Island. The plane operated by the two pilots crashed during a fire extinguishing operation. Over 600 wildfires have broken out nationwide in the past two weeks.

“There is no doubt, we can see it throughout the Mediterranean, that the climate crisis is here and affects us all, perhaps even more severely than scientists had warned,” Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said during a meeting with Greek President Katerina Sakellaropoulou on Thursday.

“The climate crisis may be a reality, but it cannot be an alibi… A human hand is responsible for most wildfires,” whether it is due to negligence or foul play, he said, adding that in the latter case, “the sword of justice will be merciless” with the perpetrators.

Source: Telesur English

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Evacuation orders have been issued for areas close to two central Greek cities threatened by new outbreaks of wildfires.

Citizens in areas around Volos and Lamia have been told to move to safety as the country remains in the grip of a severe heatwave.

Meanwhile, fires continue to rage on the islands of Rhodes, Corfu and Evia.

Greece is one of a number of countries currently grappling with wildfires, in which more than 40 people have died.

Two people have died in the fires near Volos, the fire service has confirmed – a farmer who died after he went to release his sheep to protect them, and a woman who was in a mobile home in Chorostasi.

Kostas Agorastos, mayor of Greece’s Thessaly region, which includes Volos, has accused “brainless workers” of starting the fire, according to the Ellada 24 news channel.

He added that it had broken out on four simultaneous fronts.

In Rhodes, where a state of emergency is in place and from where thousands of tourists have been forced to flee, high winds have continued to fan the flames and villages remain at risk.

Some firefighters, who have been battling the blazes for days, have begun to lose hope.

“Every day, every night, we are here and we achieve nothing,” Savas Filaderis, who is from Rhodes, told the Reuters news agency.

“We can’t stop it,” he said.

“Everybody, all the people, they fight. The civil people, the government, they are but… for nothing. I believe we fight for nothing.”

In southern Italy, fires in Sicily and Puglia have also been fuelled by high winds and tinder-dry vegetation, meaning firefighters have been struggling in many areas to douse the flames and create firebreaks.

The church of St Benedict the Moor in the Sicilian city of Palermo was among the buildings that have been destroyed in the fires.

“The damage is enormous,” said Vincenzo Bruccoleri, superior friar of the convent.

Enrico Trantino, the mayor of Catania, another city on the island, told the BBC the high temperatures had melted underground electrical cables, which had left parts of the city without power and water.

However, Italy is expected to become much cooler in the coming days, according to BBC Weather.

The heaviest death toll so far is in Algeria, with more than 30 victims, including 10 soldiers surrounded by flames during an evacuation in the coastal province of Bejaia, east of Algiers.

Most of the fires have now been contained.

In neighbouring Tunisia, the country’s Interior Minister, Kamel Feki, said on Wednesday that all of the wildfires were under control and there had been no loss of life.

The European Commission, the executive body of the European Union, said support was being sent to affected countries, including Tunisia and Greece.

But Yamina Saheb, lead author on the United Nations’ climate change panel, known as the IPCC, told the BBC that people in the African region felt they were being left to fend for themselves without international help.

“People are scared and they don’t really understand why there is no international help,” she said.

Ms Saheb said she had spoken to friends and colleagues in the affected areas, who were finding it hard to understand why there was no European aid when they were so close to the continent.

“They say, if the situation gets worse, what are we going to do? Are we going to die, all of us? Is Africa going to die because of climate change, and Europe will be watching that, just watching and not doing anything?”

Residents in Algeria return to areas blackened by wildfires

The EU has also said it wants to sign contracts for up to 12 firefighting planes in order to improve its ability to fight blazes fuelled by climate change. These would be the first it would fully own.

A team of climate scientists – the World Weather Attribution group – said this month’s intense heatwave in Southern Europe, North America and China would have been virtually impossible without human-induced climate change.

• Greece fires in maps and satellite images
• How climate change affects heatwaves and wildfires
• Wildfires in Greece in pictures

The fires have dealt a blow to the summer tourism industry, especially in Greece, where the industry accounts for one in five jobs and is vital for Rhodes and many other islands.

Holiday firms Jet2 and Tui have cancelled departures to the island for the coming days.

Tui said that it had already brought hundreds of people home, while hundreds more were expected to make it back to the UK on Wednesday.

The UK Foreign Office has not advised against travel to the affected parts of Greece, but has urged tourists to check with tour operators for updates.

Thousands of people have also been evacuated on Evia and Corfu, while Crete – another major holiday destination – is on high alert.

Other European countries have not escaped the heatwave unscathed. Portugal, Croatia and the French Mediterranean Island of Corsica are among other places that have experienced wildfires in recent days.

Source: BBC

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A security zone has been set up around a Greek air force base after wildfires triggered powerful explosions at an ammunition depot on Thursday.

Shock waves were felt miles away and 133 residents of the nearby town of Nea Anchialos escaped by sea.

The coastal base is home to Greece’s 111 Combat Wing, and F-16 planes flew to another base as a precaution.

F-16 missiles and bombs are stored at the depot 6km (3.7 miles) north of the planes and the runway.

As the wildfire reached the western end of the base on Thursday evening, police set up a perimeter and the area was rocked by several powerful explosions, including a dramatic blast heard at 19:18 (16:18 GMT).

No-one was hurt, but windows were shattered in Nea Anchialos and several villages in the area were evacuated as church bells rang out warning residents to leave their homes.

The shock waves were felt some distance up the coast of the Magnesia region in the city of Volos. A major wine co-operative just outside Nea Anchialos went up in flames.

Greece has endured two weeks of fire emergencies, which have seen thousands of holidaymakers and residents fleeing some of its popular destinations.

The continuing crisis prompted Citizen Protection Minister Notis Mitarakis to resign for “personal reasons”. The minister had reportedly been absent from his desk in Athens and some Greek media said he had been on a boat on the island of Patmos.

During the afternoon, residents fled by road and by sea, as the coast guard and private boats ferried people to safety.

Greek daily Kathimerini reported that the ammunition depot was so tightly packed that its fire safety systems had not worked.

The system was in effect rendered useless by the sheer volume of explosives, the paper said, and the munitions that blew up may have overheated rather than coming into direct contact with the fires.

The fire has now been extinguished and air force and fire crews have sprayed coolant on the ammunition depot. The fleet of F-16s was flown to the Larissa headquarters of another combat squadron.

The 111 Combat Wing base, which is home to dozens of F-16s, was later declared safe. However, officials say the situation there remains critical as it is possible that projectiles and ammunitions could have been scattered over large distances and remain active.

Fire department spokesman Ioannis Artopoios said that personnel at the air force base had been trained for this kind of emergency: “That is the reason they were able to evacuate the base so fast and fly the planes to nearby airports.”

The Greek fire service said on Friday that conditions were beginning to improve after raging fires in central Greece, as well as the islands of Rhodes, Corfu and Evia, left three people dead and 74 people injured.

“After 15 days of extreme weather phenomena, and a 10-day period with more than 600 fires, today is the first day that we are not in a critical state of alert,” said Vassilis Kikilias, minister of climate crisis and civil protection.

Temperatures across Greece have fallen a little, but there are strong, gusty winds.

While many of the fires have abated, firefighters are concerned the winds could lead to new flare-ups. as the ground in many affected areas is still hot and smouldering.

Mr Kikilias said the government would do “what is necessary” to relieve affected areas and action would be taken where mistakes or deficiencies were found.

“The climate crisis will not go away and we must adjust our policies at all levels,” he told a news conference.

Greece has been mourning the deaths of two pilots whose Canadair water-bomber plane crashed while fighting a fire on Evia on Tuesday.

A funeral took place in Crete on Friday for Christos Moulas. Greek President Katerina Sakellaropoulou attended the service, along with Moulas’s pregnant widow.

His colleague, 27-year-old Periklis Stefanidis, was buried on Thursday in his hometown of Kilkis. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and a detachment from the air force took part in the funeral.

• Are arsonists behind Italy’s devastating wildfires?

Water-bombing planes have also been in action in Croatia as firefighters deal with a fire on the island of Ciovo near Split.

Almost 150 firefighters battled fierce winds and two people were reportedly arrested in connection with the fire. By Friday morning the blaze was said to be under control.

This month is set to become the hottest month on record, according to both the World Meteorological Organization and the EU’s Copernicus climate change service (C3S).

On Thursday, UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned that the era of global warming had ended and that “the era of global boiling” had arrived.

“The extreme weather which has affected many millions of people in July is unfortunately the harsh reality of climate change and a foretaste of the future,” said the World Meteorological Organization’s Secretary-General, Prof Petteri Taalas.

Source: BBC

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Longtime Marin residents will remember the late Elizabeth Terwilliger’s famous mnemonic for telling the difference between a flying hawk and a flying turkey vulture: “V is for vulture!” A large circling bird whose wings form the shape of a “V” is a turkey vulture. A soaring bird whose wings in flight are held flat and straight across is a hawk.

You can spot a turkey vulture, or even a group of them “kettling” together, virtually anywhere in Marin County. Once the sun heats the environment enough to create the thermals they need to soar, turkey vultures seem to exist in every corner of the sky. But what are these big, soaring birds doing? The answer is looking for dead things, but the turkey vulture’s role in our ecosystem goes far beyond their disgusting job description.

Everything about a vulture is built for soaring, and, let’s be honest, eating carrion. That naked head? Perfectly designed for inserting into the body cavity of a carcass. That sharp beak? Excellent for tearing and rending tough hides. Those huge nostril-like openings? Well-suited for detecting the scent of rot on the wind. Turkey vultures have extremely advanced olfactory senses, one of the best in the natural world.

But before you stop reading out of disgust, consider the services turkey vultures provide, as well as some of the marvelous adaptations that make their role as head of nature’s cleanup crew possible.

Turkey vultures have ferocious stomach acid and their gastrointestinal system is extremely hostile to bacteria. Although vultures do have standards and they prefer to consume recently dead flesh over putrid carcasses, an average meal still contains loads of bacteria that, if left to spread, multiply and enter the water table, would cause illness in other animals and humans.

A turkey vulture consumes the bacteria that cause illnesses, including botulism, anthrax, salmonella and cholera, preventing these bacteria from spreading through the wider environment. Not only do vultures prevent the spread of bacteria through ingestion, they also effectively sterilize the area around the carcass with their droppings, which are deposited in a starburst pattern around the feeding area. Fun fact: Turkey vultures also urinate/defecate on their legs, which successfully kills remaining bacteria on their feet, in addition to helping the bird cool off.

Turkey vultures are large birds, but their 6-foot wingspan belies their body weight of only 3 to 4 pounds. They can consume an astonishing amount of food — pounds of meat per day. Consumption in such quantities helps purge the environment of rotting animals and potentially hazardous bacteria, but it makes escaping predators challenging for vultures. The solution? Vomiting, of course.

WildCare’s Wildlife Hospital admits a dozen or more turkey vulture patients every year, usually victims of cars or secondary poisoning. If you ask staff and volunteers what the worst smell in the world is, most will immediately reply, “turkey vulture vomit!” and we know this because these patients inevitably vomit copiously immediately upon admission.

This reflex serves them well. A heap of vomited carrion either causes a potential predator to shy away in disgust, or distracts the predator with an easier meal, allowing the now-slightly-lighter vulture to make his laborious way back into the safety of the sky, ready to find the next potentially disease-causing carcass to consume.

The next time you see a vulture soaring or sitting with outstretched wings, absorbing the sun in the “horaltic pose,” take a moment to appreciate these interesting animals. Vultures have complex social lives, mate for life and are excellent parents. These attributes, combined with their undeniable service to the environment, make them excellent neighbors.

Source : The Mercury News

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