Samos: forest fire on Mount Kerkis

A fire broke out on the afternoon of Monday 24 August 2026 in a forest area on Mount Kerkis, in Western Samos, specifically in the Marathokambos area. According to the Samos Fire Service, the alert for the incident was given around 14:15. 28 firefighters with ten vehicles operated at the scene, with assistance from a ground unit of the 14th Special Forest Operations Unit, the EMODE. A helicopter was mobilised to support ground forces, carrying out water drops over the fire front. The Municipality of Western Samos provided water tankers, boosting the water supply to fire vehicles during the operation.

The incident occurred on a day when Samos was in risk category 4, meaning very high fire risk, according to the Civil Protection map. Category 4 is the second-highest on the five-level scale and means conditions favour not only a fire starting but also its rapid spread. This also explains the scale of the initial mobilisation: for an incident in a forest area, both ground forces with a special forest operations unit and an aerial asset were deployed from the outset, without waiting to see how the fire front developed. The Special Forest Operations Units are ground units trained to intervene in hard-to-reach forest terrain, where vehicles cannot approach.

The fire was subsequently reported with no active front, with crews remaining in the area to extinguish flare-ups and keep watch. The two sources that covered the incident do not announce a burned area, and do not mention injuries, damage to homes or property, or precautionary evacuations of settlements. No estimate has been given either for how long extinguishing took or whether a second aerial asset was needed. What has not been announced remains open and should not be inferred from the scale of the mobilisation, which reflects the precautionary tactic used on days of very high risk. The two sources agree on the basic facts of the mobilisation and present no conflicting information between them.

Investigation of the causes was taken on by an investigative unit from Lesvos, since responsibility for the islands of the North Aegean is exercised at regional level. Until the findings are complete, no cause, accidental or arson, has been confirmed. The incident on Samos was one of many on the same day: the Fire Service recorded a total of 49 rural and forest fires in 24 hours, while for Tuesday 25 August the risk remained high in dozens of areas of the country. ERT reports the fire front subsiding, while Newsbomb describes the initial mobilisation phase, as the two reports cover different moments of the same day. On the Aegean islands, surveillance remains heightened for as long as the hot, dry spell of August lasts.