I have not written or commented about the wild fires in Greece because the TV cameras on the international news—and non-stop on Greek TV—have shown so much.  Also they did not materially affect visitors or travel.

That changed this morning when we noticed a tall column of dark smoke beyond our hill.  The strong North wind was blowing it out to sea before it came our way.  Karin had plans to visit our friends who lived on the hillside so she hopped on her scooter and headed out to take a look.

She managed to capture some of the drama with her camera.  The fire was above the Glifa beach, about 5 kms from our home.

Approaching the area.

At first the fire was far away.

But in just a few minutes it jumped up the hill.

Getting close; time to leave.

Helicopter to rescue.  We saw two helicopters and four airplanes dumping water.

As far as we know there was no homes burned or injuries on Paros from this fire that lasted a couple hours.  Later as Karin was watching the water planes refill from our friends hillside terrace she commented what a dangerous job for the pilots.

This afternoon we read in the news that sure enough a water plane pilot was killed in an accident this same morning off of Cephalonia while fighting a fire there.  We owe more than we can ever repay to fire fighters.