Plane fighting Greek island wildfire crashes killing both pilots, as Italian blaze claims 2 lives

RHODES, Greece — A Greek air force water-dropping plane crashed while diving into a wildfire in southern Greece on Tuesday, killing both pilots, as authorities battled blazes that have been raging for days across the country amid a return of heat wave temperatures.

Summer wildfires blamed on climate change have also struck other Mediterranean countries, leaving at least 34 people dead in Algeria and two people dead in southern Italy Tuesday.

A state ERT TV video showed the bright yellow CL-215 aircraft releasing its load of water on the island of Evia before its wingtip apparently snagged in a tree branch. Moments later it disappeared into a deep fold in the ground from which a fireball erupted.

The air force said the pilots, aged 34 and 27, both died in the crash. The plane had no ejection system.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis cancelled a planned visit to Cyprus for Wednesday, and Greece’s armed forces declared three days of mourning.

“They offered their lives to save lives,” Mitsotakis said of the pilots. “They proved how hazardous their daily missions in extinguishing fires are … In their memory, we continue the war against the destructive forces of nature.”

A third successive heat wave in Greece pushed temperatures back above 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) across parts of the country Tuesday amid a string of evacuations from fires that have raged out of control for days, whipped on by strong winds.

It’s still unclear how they started, although tinder-dry conditions amid the summer heat mean the slightest spark can trigger a blaze that will spread fast if not quickly quenched. Several people have been arrested or fined across Greece in recent days for accidentally starting fires.

EU officials have blamed climate change for the increasing frequency and intensity of wildfires across the European continent, noting that 2022 was the second-worst year for wildfire damage on record after 2017.