Greece battles wildfire on Kos island for second day

ATHENS (Reuters) -Greek firefighters battled a blaze on the islands of Kos for a second day on Tuesday, as hundreds of tourists and locals who had been forced to evacuate overnight returned to their hotels and homes.

As the wildfire reached the seaside village of Kardamaina overnight, people took refuge in a sports centre and other venues, Christos Efstratiou, deputy governor for the Dodecanese islands, told Reuters.

The wildfire had abated by Tuesday morning, letting people return, and there was no damage to buildings, Efstratiou said. Video footage showed tourists waiting in the morning to board buses that would take them back to hotels and rented homes.

Wildfires are common in the eastern Mediterranean country. But hotter, drier and windier weather that scientists link to the effects of climate change has increased their frequency and intensity.

More than 100 firefighters, assisted by a helicopter, were still tackling the blaze on Kos, to stop it flaring up again, the fire brigade said.

On the nearby island of Chios, more than 170 firefighters assisted by 36 engines and 10 aircraft were trying to tame another fire that broke out on Monday afternoon.

“The situation appears improved on both fronts,” a fire brigade official said, referring to both blazes.

Emergency crews assisted by water-carrying planes also fought a wildfire on the island of Crete on Tuesday.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis warned this week of a dangerous summer of wildfires following a prolonged drought and unusually high gusts of wind for the season.

Last year, forest fires killed 20 people in the north of the country and forced 19,000 people to flee the island of Rhodes.

Since then the country has been increasingly using drones to locate the blazes early. It now plans to increase its unmanned aircraft to 35 systems and beef up the number of trained drone operators to 139 from 104.

(Reporting by Angeliki Koutantou and Renee Maltezou, Editing by William Maclean)