Almost 240 Firefighters from Bulgaria, Malta, Moldova, and Romania to Arrive in Greece to Help Combat Wildfires

For the third year in a row, Greece is hosting foreign firefighters to help extinguish forest fires. This year, about 240 firefighters from Bulgaria, Malta, Moldova and Romania will be deployed in Greece from early July to mid-September, at the height of the wildfire season, to help the country fight the blazes, local authorities said, Ekathimerini reports. 

They will be deployed in Attica, Thessaloniki and Achaea, along with their vehicles. A mission from Bulgaria has already arrived in Thessaloniki, while teams from Malta and Moldova are expected to arrive in Attica and Achia on 15 July. 

All the countries involved are part of a firefighter exchange programme under the European Union's Civil Protection Mechanism. Greece has been participating in the programme since 2022. In turn, Athens sent 25 specialised forest firefighters to the south of France in June.  

As a reminder, on Monday, thousands of people were evacuated from hotels and homes on the islands of Kos and Chios in the eastern Aegean Sea as ground forces and airborne aircraft battled two major forest fires. Five people were reportedly lightly injured - four firefighters and one volunteer - and one person was arrested on Chios and fined almost €9,000 for accidentally setting fire to and causing a forest fire.

From Monday to Tuesday, 36 forest fires broke out across Greece, the fire service reported. The vast majority of them were extinguished in the early stages.