Athens (AFP) - Officials on the southern Greek island of Crete evacuated thousands of people from wildfires, while two people died in neighbouring Turkey as fires took hold in the western province of Izmir on Thursday.

About 30 kilometres (19 miles) east of Athens, another fire broke out near the port of Rafina on Thursday afternoon, local officials said.

Hot dry weather in Greece – not unusual for this time of year – has heightened the risk of a repeat of the summer wildfires that have hit the country in recent years.

Turkey, although spared the recent heatwaves that gripped southern Europe, has battled the effects of a long-term drought likely brought on by climate change.

On Crete, about 5,000 people were evacuated after a blaze that broke out on Wednesday evening, the president of the regional hotels’ association told AFP on Thursday.

Yorgos Tzarakis said that about 3,000 tourists and 2,000 residents had been moved, mostly overnight, as a precaution from areas close to the Crete resort town of Ierapetra, in the southeast.

He said that most of the tourists had been evacuated to the north of the island.

Vice-prefect Yannis Androulakis told Greek broadcaster Mega that officials had ordered the evacuations because water bomber aeroplanes had not been able to reach the affected areas overnight.

Strong winds on three active fronts helped the fire progress, said Androulakis, some reaching nine on the Beaufort scale.

The inaccessible terrain in Crete, Greece’s largest island, has also hampered the work of the firefighters there.

- Two dead in Turkey -

In Turkey, two wildfires broke out near Izmir, Turkey’s third-largest city. In each case, three villages were evacuated.

“An elderly, bedridden patient could not be saved,” said Salih Uzun, a lawmaker in Izmir for the opposition CHP party, of the blaze close to Odemis.

A forest worker in the same area died as he battled the blazes, the country’s agriculture minister Ibrahim Yumakli said on X.

Izmir governor Suleyman Elban said the main problem had been wind speeds of up to 85 kilometres per hour (53 miles per hour) and their constant changes of direction.

“So the intervention from both land and air is seriously challenging,” he told reporters, adding that the flames had cut off the main highway from Izmir city.

Firefighters backed by fire engines and firefighting aircraft were battling the flames, he added.

Both fires in the province, as well as others over the weekend and since controlled, had been caused by power cables, he said.

Meteorologist Ismail Kucuk, citing forestry ministry figures, told AFP that “90 percent of forest fires” were due to man-made causes. Power cables in particular posed a risk if not properly maintained, he added.

The fire near Athens had already burned five or six houses, one local mayor told ERT public television.

Fire service spokesman Vassilios Vathrakoyannis said that around 170 firefighters, 17 firefighting planes, 48 fire engines and seven helicopters were fighting the blaze.

Firefighters had evacuated 300 people and rescued 51, he added.

But their task could be complicated by the higher temperatures and strong winds forecast in the Athens region in the coming days.

- High fire risk in July -

The risk of fires was “considerable” in July, the hottest month of the year in Greece, said fire service spokesman Vathrakoyannis.

The country recorded its hottest-ever summer in 2024, when 45,000 hectares (110,000 acres) of land burned, according to WWF Greece and the Athens National Observatory.

In terms of surface area destroyed, 2023 was the worst on record.

Nearly 175,000 hectares were obliterated and 20 people died during heatwaves when temperatures rose in places to 46 degrees Celsius (115 degrees Fahrenheit).

Experts say human-driven climate change is causing more frequent and more intense wildfires and other natural disasters, and have warned Turkey to take measures to tackle the problem.