Rome/Athens (BLAZETRENDS).- The fires that have ravaged Italy and Greece for days continue to give truce.
On the island of Sicily, in southern Italy, some 30 fires are still active and have already burned 700 hectares of wooded areas.
The situation is improving in the province of Messina, although several families have seen their houses destroyed; hectares of forest heritage have burned and the lighting and telephone systems, as well as the water network have suffered numerous damages due to the flames.
In Palermo the fires also continue and since this morning the planes have been flying over that wooded area of Altofonte, while the Fico valley has been burning for two days, but the firefighters assure that the fire is at least under control.
According to a first estimate by the Sicilian Civil Protection, the 338 fires registered in two days have caused damage worth some 60 million euros, to which must be added the more than 200 quantified by the agricultural sector, as a result of the exceptional heat wave.
In addition to the flames, temperatures well above 45 degrees have caused electrical service to overload and many wires have melted from the intense heat, resulting in power and water outages across the island.
Greece continues to fight large fires throughout its territory
In Greece, the flames on the islands of Rhodes, Corfu and Euboea continue out of control while new outbreaks have been declared in the interior of the country.
The front that is most worrying at the moment is the one that broke out on Wednesday five kilometers west of Volos, in central Greece, where it threatens an industrial area of this city of 150,000 inhabitants.
Throughout the night the flames spread to the south, for which the authorities had to evacuate at least 9 coastal towns in the area this morning.
Emergency services found the charred corpse of a woman inside the mobile home where she lived near Almirós, a town about 35 kilometers south of Volos.
Further west, near Áyios Yeorgios, the lifeless body of a farmer who had gone out to save his animals when another fire broke out was found.
This Thursday the situation seems to have improved a bit and firefighters are fighting against small scattered sources of fire, although it is feared that the strong winds blowing will reignite the flames.
After experiencing a wave of extreme heat in the last three weeks, the Greeks hope that a significant drop in thermometers today will bring relief to the country and facilitate the fight against the fires.
Last Sunday, 46.4 degrees Celsius had been recorded in the city of Gythium, in the Peloponnese, the highest temperature ever recorded in Greece.