(Bloomberg) -- Greece is fighting more wildfires as strong winds blow from the north across the Aegean Sea.
Firefighters tackled a second blaze on Mount Olympus — the highest peak in Greece — after an outbreak in a deep ravine on Sunday. Helicopters are also assisting at another fire near the industrial town of Aspropyrgos, 18 kilometers (11 miles) northwest of Athens. In the northeast, a wildfire on Mount Paggaio burnt for a fifth day.
There’s a very high risk of fires in Athens and the surrounding Attica region, plus Peloponnese, the island of Evia and the north Aegean Sea islands of Samothraki and Thasos. The Etesian winds, known as the meltemia, will heighten risks across the Aegean. Temperatures were due to ease this afternoon as storms break out over the mainland.
Greece has been seared by heat waves and forest fires this summer, as climate change increases the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events. Heat and storms will also impact countries in the Balkans and across the Mediterranean on Monday.
Heat will spread across central Europe by the middle of this week.
In Berlin, the mean temperature is forecast to rise as high as 26C (79F) on Aug. 28, 9 degrees above the 30-year norm. Paris will reach an average of 24C the same day, 6 degrees above the norm.
Listen on Zero: The 21st Century Will Be Shaped by Destructive ‘Fire Weather’
(Updates with latest fires in second paragraph)
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