Chios Island in Greece Declares Emergency Amid Ongoing Wildfires

ATHENS (Reuters) -Greece on Monday declared a state of emergency on Chios island, where hundreds of firefighters have been battling wildfires for a second day as winds further whipped up the blaze, causing power cuts and the evacuation of residents.

"The situation since yesterday on the island is quite difficult because we constantly have new fronts and resurgences and the climatic conditions are not favorable," Yiannis Kefalogiannis, the climate crisis and civil protection minister, said upon his arrival in Chios.

He confirmed that 170 more firefighters will reinforce 11 teams of about 190 firefighters deployed on the island in the northeastern Aegean Sea, who were trying to prevent the conflagration from spreading to homes and areas known for producing mastiha, a natural resin harvested from mastic trees.

Thirty more vehicles will reinforce 38 vehicles already deployed, assisted by 13 helicopters and four water bomber aircraft, Kefalogiannis said.

Wind gusts complicated efforts to extinguish the wildfires, which have razed forest and pasture land as they barrel towards the north, west and south of Chios town, the island's capital, causing power cuts and forcing hundreds of villagers to flee to safety.

Kefalogiannis said the authorities will investigate the causes of the fires which broke out at different geographical parts of the island.

Sitting at Europe's hot southernmost tip, Greece has felt the economic and environmental impact of frequent wildfires in recent years that scientists say have been exacerbated by a fast-changing climate.

The country has spent hundreds of millions of euros to compensate households and farmers for damage related to extreme weather and to update firefighting equipment. 

It has hired a record number of firefighters this year, some 18,000 of them, in anticipation of a challenging fire season.

(Reporting by Angeliki Koutantou and Daria Sito-Sucic;Editing by Bernadette Baum and Aurora Ellis)