Fire Service: 49 rural and forest fires in 24 hours

Forty-nine rural and forest fires broke out across the country within twenty-four hours, from 18:00 on Sunday 23 August 2026 to 18:00 on Monday 24 August 2026, according to the Fire Service’s tally as reported by specialist site Fire Fighting Greece. Of these, 38 were tackled immediately, at their initial stage, before they could develop into extensive fire fronts. For the remaining 11 incidents, fire crews were still operating at the time the tally was released. At the same time, local investigative offices and units of the Directorate for Combating Arson Crimes, the D.A.E.E., took on the task of investigating the causes of the fires.

The number shows a worsening compared with the immediately preceding days. In the corresponding 24-hour period from 18:00 on the 20th to 18:00 on the 21st of August, the Fire Service had recorded 29 rural and forest fires, twenty fewer. Among the individual incidents of Monday, three stood out. In Kalorrema Metsovou a fire broke out in a forest area, where 12 firefighters operated with one helicopter. In Aspros Paionias in Kilkis, a fire in low vegetation mobilised 30 firefighters and one helicopter. In Tragano Ileias, in a rural-forest area, 24 firefighters operated with three aircraft. The three incidents, in Epirus, Macedonia and the Peloponnese, show the strain on the mechanism was simultaneous across fronts far apart from each other.

The proportion of incidents extinguished at their initial stage is the key indicator the Fire Service uses to describe the effectiveness of the initial response. With 38 out of 49 fires tackled in time, around four in five incidents did not develop into large fire fronts. The rest, however, tie up crews for hours or even days, at a time when the mechanism is already operating on heightened alert and with extensive surveillance from unmanned aircraft. It should also be noted what the tally does not include: no burned area was announced, nor injuries, damage to homes or evacuations of settlements. The announcement concerns solely the number of incidents and the status of operations, not their consequences.

The Fire Service issued an appeal to citizens to be especially careful and to notify the authorities immediately as soon as they notice smoke. The D.A.E.E.’s investigation into the causes continues, and its findings will show how many of the 49 incidents are attributed to negligence and how many to intent; until it is complete, no cause has been officially confirmed for any of them. The tally was released while the country is going through the most burdened period of the fire season, with the risk remaining high across much of the country already since the previous weekend. The next step is the daily readjustment of the distribution of forces according to the Fire Risk Forecast Map.