Greece bolsters firefighting arsenal to cope with country's growing heat risk

Skimming over miles of hills blackened by wildfires west of Athens, Fire Lt. Col. Ioannis Kolovos readies his elite fire crew crouched inside a helicopter. The 10-member group from the 1st Wildfire Special Operation Unit bristles with tools needed to hold back fires: chainsaws, specialized rakes, weather gauges, computer tablets and earth-scorching drip torches to burn wildfire barriers into the hillside.

Windy and mountainous with hard-to-reach islands, Greece faces a daunting annual challenge in defending multiple urban settlements that overlap with wooded areas at wildfire risk. It’s also getting hotter: Last winter was the warmest since modern records began in 1960, according to the National Observatory of Athens, which analyzed European Union satellite data. The six warmest Greek winters on record have occurred in the past decade.

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