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Greece Reinforces Firefighting Forces to Tackle Massive Blaze in the Country’s Northeast 

A firefighting helicopter drops water during efforts to put out wildfire in the area of Leptokarya, Evros, northern Greece, 26 August 2023 (issued 27 August 2023). (EPA)
A firefighting helicopter drops water during efforts to put out wildfire in the area of Leptokarya, Evros, northern Greece, 26 August 2023 (issued 27 August 2023). (EPA)
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Greece Reinforces Firefighting Forces to Tackle Massive Blaze in the Country’s Northeast 

A firefighting helicopter drops water during efforts to put out wildfire in the area of Leptokarya, Evros, northern Greece, 26 August 2023 (issued 27 August 2023). (EPA)
A firefighting helicopter drops water during efforts to put out wildfire in the area of Leptokarya, Evros, northern Greece, 26 August 2023 (issued 27 August 2023). (EPA)

Greek authorities reinforced firefighting forces in the northeastern part of the country Monday, where a massive deadly wildfire was burning for a 10th day with no signs of abating.

The fire in the Alexandroupolis and Evros areas near the Turkish border has been blamed for 20 of the 21 wildfire-related deaths in Greece last week.

The fire department said 474 firefighters, backed by 100 vehicles, seven planes and two helicopters were battling the flames. The forces included reinforcements from several European countries.

Authorities are investigating what sparked the blaze, which over the past week has decimated vast tracts of forest, scorched homes and triggered the evacuation of thousands of people. The bodies of 18 people were found in an area near the city of Alexandroupolis last Tuesday, while a body had been found in a forest in the region the previous day and another was found on Thursday.

The bodies are believed to be those of migrants who recently crossed the nearby border with Türkiye. Greece’s Disaster Victim Identification Unit has been activated to identify the remains. A man also died last week in a separate fire in central Greece, reportedly while trying to save his livestock from advancing flames.

The wildfire has scorched more than 77,000 hectares (190,000 acres) of land, the European Union’s Copernicus Emergency Management Service said Sunday, making it one of the largest single fires ever to have struck a European country.

Copernicus is the EU space program’s Earth observation component and uses satellite imagery to provide mapping data.

The situation at another major fire burning for days on Mount Parnitha on the northwestern fringes of Athens appeared significantly improved by Monday, although it was still not officially under control. The fire department said 260 firefighters backed by 77 vehicles, one plane and one helicopter were still fighting flare-ups in the fire which had burned homes and entered a national park that is one of the last green areas near the Greek capital.

Greece has been plagued by daily outbreaks of dozens of fires over the past week as gale-force winds and hot, dry summer conditions combined to whip up flames and hamper firefighting efforts.

Across the country, firefighters were battling 105 wildfires on Sunday, with 46 of them having broken out in the 24 hours between Saturday evening and Sunday evening, the fire department said.

Arson has been suspected in some of the blazes, with several people arrested.

Greece imposes wildfire prevention regulations, typically from the start of May to the end of October, limiting activities such as the burning of dried vegetation and the use of outdoor barbecues.

By Friday, fire department officials had arrested 163 people on fire-related charges since the start of the fire prevention season, government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis said, including 118 for negligence and 24 for deliberate arson. The police had made a further 18 arrests, he said.

With firefighting forces stretched to the limit, Greece has called for help from other European countries. Germany, Sweden, Croatia and Cyprus have sent aircraft, while dozens of Romanian, French, Czech, Bulgarian, Albanian, Slovak and Serb firefighters are helping on the ground.

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Berliners Jump into the Spree River to Show It’s Clean Enough for Swimming 

People swim in the river Spree to demand the lift of the hundred years old swimming ban at the river in front of the Berlin Cathedral and the TV Tower in Berlin, Germany, Tuesday, June 17, 2025. (AP)
People swim in the river Spree to demand the lift of the hundred years old swimming ban at the river in front of the Berlin Cathedral and the TV Tower in Berlin, Germany, Tuesday, June 17, 2025. (AP)
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Berliners Jump into the Spree River to Show It’s Clean Enough for Swimming 

People swim in the river Spree to demand the lift of the hundred years old swimming ban at the river in front of the Berlin Cathedral and the TV Tower in Berlin, Germany, Tuesday, June 17, 2025. (AP)
People swim in the river Spree to demand the lift of the hundred years old swimming ban at the river in front of the Berlin Cathedral and the TV Tower in Berlin, Germany, Tuesday, June 17, 2025. (AP)

A century after the city of Berlin banned swimming in the Spree River because it was so polluted it could make people sick, there's a push by swimmers to get back into the water.

Around 200 people jumped into the slow-moving, greenish water Tuesday to show that it's not only clean enough, but also lots of fun to splash and swim in the Mitte neighborhood along the world-famous Museum Island.

A group calling itself Fluss Bad Berlin, or River Pool Berlin, has been lobbying for years to open the meandering river for swimmers again.

“For 100 years now, people have not been allowed to swim in the inner-city Spree and we no longer think this is justified, because we can show that the water quality is usually good enough to go swimming during the season,” said Jan Edler, who is on the board of Fluss Bad Berlin and helped organize Tuesday's swim-in.

To circumvent the ban, the group registered their collective swim event as an official protest.

Standing on a little staircase that leads down to the Spree canal, which flows around the southern side of the island, Edler stressed that “we want the people to use the Spree for recreation again.”

He pointed to the fact that the river has been cleaned up thoroughly, and that the water quality has improved in the last decade and is constantly being monitored.

Even city officials in the central Mitte district of Berlin say they'd be interested in introducing river swimming again in 2026.

“There are still many things that need to be clarified, but I am optimistic that it can succeed,” district city councilor Ephraim Gothe told German news agency dpa recently.

Supporters of lifting the swimming ban also point at Paris, where the Seine River was opened up for swimmers for the Olympic Games last year and will be opened this summer for Parisians. Swimming there had been banned since 1923.

In Vienna, too, water lovers can splash into the Danube River canal, in the Swiss city of Basel they can bathe in the Rhine, and in Amsterdam there are some designated areas where people can plunge into the canals.

Only in Berlin, swimming has been continuously prohibited in the Spree since May 1925, when the German capital closed all traditional river pools because the water was deemed too toxic. Some of those pools weren't only used for recreational swimming, but were a place for poor people to wash themselves if they didn't have bathrooms at home.

These days, the water is clean on most days, except when there's heavy rain, which leads to some water pollution.

Allowing swimmers to dive into the river would also mean loosening the historical monument protection on some parts of the riverbanks to install easy access ways to the water and places for lifeguards.

Another problem is the busy boat traffic on the Spree that could endanger swimmers. However, for the time being, the Fluss Bad Berlin group only wants to open up nearly 2-kilometer-long (just over a mile-long) canal where there's no boat traffic.

For what it's worth, the German capital, a city of 3.9 million, could definitely need more places where people can cool off in the summer as regular outdoor pools tend to be hopelessly overcrowded on hot summer days.

“The cities are getting hotter,” Edler said. “It's also a question of environmental justice to create offers for people who just can’t make it out of the city when it’s so hot and can enjoy themselves in the countryside.”