Volos: no active front in the three fires

Three fires broke out one after another within two hours on the afternoon of Tuesday 18 August 2026 in forest areas of Volos, in Magnesia. The first was spotted at Aivaliotika, with the Fire Service Operations Centre being notified at around 18:00. Shortly afterwards, at 18:30, a second fire broke out in a forest area in the Soros district, while a third front started at 20:00 at Alykes. The rapid succession of three incidents in the same wider zone led to an escalating mobilisation of forces.

At 18:11 a message was issued by 112 to those in the wider area of the Aivaliotika settlement, advising alertness and compliance with the instructions of the authorities — not an evacuation order. The message concerned the Nees Pagases area of the Regional Unit of Magnesia. In the first phase 28 firefighters were mobilised with two foot patrol teams of the 10th ΕΜΟΔΕ, five vehicles and two helicopters. As the further fronts opened up, the forces were reinforced to 54 firefighters with sixteen vehicles and volunteers, while three aircraft and two helicopters in total were assigned to the aerial firefighting effort.

By 20:51, according to the Fire Service update, all three fronts were without an active front and the forces were operating in smouldering spots. The fire at Aivaliotika had come within about five hundred metres of the first houses of the neighbourhood, with residents of the Alykes area having come out of their homes to watch how it developed. The Magnesia investigative unit for arson crimes has been mobilised to look into the causes. No estimate has been given of the area burnt, and no injuries or damage to homes have been reported.

The area was that day at high risk of fire, in category 3 of the prediction map issued by the General Secretariat for Civil Protection. The fact that three fires started within two hours in forest zones close to one another is the main question the investigative unit has to answer, with no official assessment so far as to the origin of the fires. The same evening the Fire Service was operating simultaneously on a number of fronts across the country, among them in Kalavryta and Gortynia and on Corfu.