A wildfire raged out of control on the Greek island of Crete on Saturday, with authorities ordering the evacuation of four residential settlements, the fire department said.
\nFanned by strong winds, the blaze spread across the slopes of the mountainous forest east of the seaside town of Ierapetra.
\nAuthorities ordered the precautionary evacuation of the Achlia, Galini, Agia Fotia and Mavros Kolimpos settlements, home to around 300 people, as the blaze got close to some homes.
\nAbout 120 firefighters were battling the blaze on the ground, assisted by two helicopters.
\nWildfires are common in the Mediterranean nation during the summer months, but the government has said that extremely dry, windy and hot conditions that scientists link to climate change have made them worse in recent years.
\nLast year a wildfire burning in northeastern Greece for 11 days destroyed an area larger than New York City and killed 20 people.
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A wildfire on the Greek island of Crete prompted the evacuation of four residential settlements as firefighters battled the blaze with the help of helicopters. Climate change has been cited as a factor in worsening wildfires in Greece.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":7109,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"Default","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3348,693,5262,4393,5192,118,5264,3065,415,747,4361,393,4347,114,5263,1306,18],"class_list":["post-7108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-other","tag-change","tag-climate-change","tag-crete","tag-dry","tag-evacuation","tag-fire","tag-firefighters","tag-forest","tag-government","tag-greece","tag-mediterranean","tag-new-york","tag-summer","tag-top-news","tag-wildfire","tag-winds","tag-world"],"acf":{"keyphrase":"","keywords":"","sourceimg":"","country-category":""},"yoast_head":"\n