Kilkis: fire at photovoltaic park in Chorygi

A fire broke out on the morning of Thursday 20 August 2026 in the area of Chorygi in Kilkis, inside the local photovoltaic park, and was quickly brought under control by fire service crews. According to a report by Eidisis.gr, posted the same day at 21:29, roughly 3 hectares of grassland were burned. As the report states, “the immediate mobilisation of the fire service forces prevented it from spreading further”. No injuries are reported, nor any damage to the installation’s photovoltaic panels, and there is no mention of the park’s operation being interrupted. The park is located in a rural part of the Kilkis prefecture, where the land around such installations is covered mainly by grass and scrub.

The cause of the fire has not been announced. The report does not attribute the incident to any particular factor and no findings or assessment have been made public by the Fire Service. Nor is it specified how many vehicles and firefighters were deployed at the scene, or how long it took to put the fire out. The area burned is described as grassland, that is, not forest land, a factor that limits the environmental footprint of the incident but not the risk of spread, especially when the vegetation is dry and the winds strong. The information comes from a single local report and has not been accompanied by an official Fire Service announcement about this particular incident.

The incident is the third agricultural or forest fire in the Kilkis prefecture within a few days, according to the same source. On 18 August 2026 a fire broke out between Vaptistis and Kyriakeika, which was immediately brought under control, while an earlier fire between Terpyllos and Efkarpia burned roughly 6 hectares. The repetition of such incidents over a short period points to pressure on local fire service crews, who have to cover scattered points across the prefecture’s rural land. Taken together, the two incidents for which figures on area are given amount to roughly 9 hectares of burned land within a few days. In all three cases the land involved is agricultural or grassland rather than a forest ecosystem.

A fire breaking out inside an electricity generation installation raises the additional issue of protecting infrastructure, since photovoltaic parks are built on open land with low vegetation. In this particular case, as the report indicates, no damage to equipment was recorded. It has not been announced whether an inspection of the installation or of its fire protection measures will follow. The incident comes during a period of heightened alert across the country, with a high fire risk for Friday 21 August 2026 and fire fronts in Serres and Karditsa. For residents of the surrounding settlements, the question that remains open is whether these are isolated incidents or a recurring pattern, a question the competent authorities have not answered.