Greek firefighters make progress against wildfires

Firefighters in Greece gained ground Thursday against a wildfire outside the third-largest city of Patras, while water bombers battled blazes on three other fronts.

The situation in the country’s main port to Italy was much improved after an overnight struggle, fire department spokesman Vassilis Vathrakogiannis said in a televised address.

Firefighters in Patras were facing “scattered” pockets of flames but the fire was “still active” in the eastern outskirts of the city of over 200,000, he said.

Citing data from the EU’s Copernicus satellite monitoring programme, the Athens national observatory on Thursday said ongoing fires in the Patras area, the Aegean island of Chios, the Ionian island of Zakynthos and near the western city of Preveza had burned over 10,000 hectares.

Police said t