Cypriot mission relocates after paying tribute to Helios plane crash victims

The Cypriot firefighting mission in Greece is expected to fly to Alexandroupolis on Sunday to operate in the Evros region together with the Greek fire brigade.

The exact time of departure has yet to be announced, Fire Service’s spokesman, Andreas Kettis, wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

The news came following an improvement in the area of Grammatikou where the team was relocated on Saturday after battling fires in Parnitha when they arrived on Friday.

Meanwhile, on Saturday, one of the two groups of the 31-member mission paid tribute in memory of the 121 victims of the 2005 Helios plane crash. The team was led by fire service chief Christoforos Stylianou.

It is understood the team did so on their own initiative, right after another team came to replace them.

“On their way to rest, in an area adjacent to the area where they were operating in Grammatikos, they spotted on a hill the small chapel built next to the ravine where the aircraft crashed,” the spokesman said.

helios firefighters

Greece has recorded some 517 wildfires that had broken out across Greece since last Friday, fuelled by high temperatures and in some cases gale force winds.

The flames have been described as the largest recorded wildfire on European soil in years by the EU-backed Copernicus Climate Change Service.

“Greece is going through the most difficult year, in terms of climatic conditions, in the history of recording and collecting meteorological data,” government spokesperson Pavlos Marinakis told a regular briefing.

The blaze has killed 19 migrants who were charred “beyond recognition” in one part of the forest close to Turkey. More are feared to be dead. Tens of thousands of hectares of land have been destroyed in the northeast alone.

While summer wildfires are common in Greece, the government says conditions, which scientists link to climate change have made them more intense this year.

Germany, Sweden, Croatia and Cyprus sent aircraft, while dozens of Romanian, French, Czech, Bulgarian and Albanian firefighters have been assisting on the ground.

Cyprus has also sent a 31-person mission comprised by 13 members of the fire service, 13 from Civil Defence, and a five-member HART Special Situations Response Team of the Ambulance Directorate of the state health services organisation.