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Two people, reportedly an elderly couple, died and hundreds of weekend bathers were rushed to safety Sunday after two fires broke out on the Greek island of Salamis near Athens in less than half an hour, the fire department said.
Nine people needed medical care for burns, state agency ANA said.
As another fire on the Aegean island of Skyros was brought under control, a fire department spokesman told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that "two bodies were recovered" from the Peristeria beach area in the south of Salamis.
"Over 570 people were evacuated on coast guard patrol boats and other vessels," a coastguard spokeswoman told AFP.
Fire department communications director Vassilis Vathrakogiannis said the separate fires had broken out in Peristeria and near Selinia, popular beaches in the island’s south and east, within 20 minutes of each other.
The fires come as Europe faces a wave of wildfires in tinderbox conditions, fuelled by widespread drought and high temperatures that scientists have linked to climate change.
Salamis, just west of Athens, is home to some 37,000 residents, many of them elderly, and the beaches were crowded on Sunday, including day travellers, officials said. With winds reaching 61 kilometres (38 miles) per hour, the fire "spread rapidly in seven minutes," Vathrakogiannis said.
Battling through rocky terrain, firefighters kept the Selinia blaze from climbing a mountain and merging with the other fire, Salamis' deputy mayor Thodoris Zannis told the ERT TV station.
A fire department spokesman told AFP the Selinia blaze had been extinguished by the evening, while scattered pockets of fire remained at Peristeria.
The fire service deployed some 260 firefighters, nearly 60 engines, 10 aircraft, and seven helicopters, rushing reinforcements from the mainland.
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