Wildfires Greece: Bodies of 18 people found in forest hit by Greek wildfires

The people whose bodies have been found in Greece amid the wildfires are believed to be asylum seekers

The bodies of 18 people have been found in a forest area in Greece where wildfires have been raging for the past four days.

The dead were discovered in the Dadia forest in the Evros region of north-eastern Greece, close to the Turkish border.

Initial reports have claimed they could be asylum seekers. A coroner and investigation team are heading to the scene in the Dadia forest.

A house burning during a wildfire in Avanta, near Alexandroupoli, northern Greece. Wildfires have hot the region in the past few days.

Greek authorities said the discovery, in a region known as a crossing point from Turkey into Europe, was made near a shack on the border of the forest.

They said no missing person reports had been made in the region from within Greece, leading them to believe the people were likely to be asylum seekers who had crossed into the country through an irregular route.

Both some Greek islands and the mainland have been blighted by wildfires over the summer as unusually hot weather conditions made it easier for fires to spread.

On Tuesday, fires were also burning on the islands of Evia and Kythnos, and in the region of Boeotia, north of Athens, amid a dangerous mix of gale-force winds and temperatures of up to 41C. Two more fires also broke out near the capital Athens on Tuesday.

“It’s a similar situation to July,” a fire department spokesperson said. He said more than 60 fires had erupted in the past 24 hours, and 120 firefighters were being sent to help from Cyprus, Romania, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Germany and Serbia via the European Union’s civil protection mechanism.

In Evros, patients in a hospital in the port city of Alexandroupolis were evacuated onto a ferry as the fires burned close to the hospital building. Pictures showed patients hooked up to IV drips in beds on board the ferry.

On Monday, another man believed to be a migrant was discovered to have died in wildfires in Lefkimmi, near Alexandroupolis, while the body of a shepherd was discovered in the central Viotia region.

Thousands of people were evacuated from their homes and hotels last month on islands including Crete and Rhodes.