The Xinhua General News Service
ATHENS — Greek fire fighters have been battling wildfires raging across Greece on Thursday, as six persons were injured and villages and hotels have been evacuated as precautionary measures.
The worst front over the past few hours was at the northern Greece mountainous peninsula of Athos, which is home to several Orthodox Christian all-male monasteries, according to a spokesman of the Greek Fire Brigade.
Aided by seven water-dropping airplanes, more than 100 fire fighters have been deployed in the area to put out the flames, but their tasks have been damped by strong winds.
Hotels in the Ouranoupolis village have been evacuated due to thick smoke, as authorities have put the region on alert.
In a similar wildfire at the outskirts of the city of Megalopolis at the Peloponnese peninsula in southern Greece, four fire fighters and two civilians trying to protect farmland and homes were slightly injured.
A 45-year old local was detained for allegedly starting the fire. According to local media, the fire broke out after he threw a cigarette in dried bushes.
According to early estimates, the fire has burnt down approximately 3,000 hectares of forest and farmland and has destroyed several farmhouses.
The damage was comparatively smaller at the Aegean Sea island of Kos, where another wildfire was brought under control, after threatening inhabited areas and forcing the brief evacuation of hotels.
Greece suffers each summer from destructive wildfires linked to scorching temperatures and arson in many cases.
This year, the country experiences one of its hottest summers and has faced the challenge of dozens major wildfires.
A young fire fighter died in a wildfire near Athens in July. Over 80 people, firefighters and civilians died across Greece in the summer of 2007 in the worst wildfires-linked tragedy in decades.
Copyright 2012 Xinhua News Agency