Eight villages were evacuated in northeastern Greece on Saturday and the fire is moving towards the airport in the city of Alexandroupolis, authorities said, according to AFP.

“At least eight villages have been evacuated and we are doing everything we can to make sure that there is no danger to people’s lives,” Christos Metios, the governor of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace, told Athens News.

The authorities asked the residents of Alexandropol to stay at home.

“A difficult night ahead and gusts of wind of 7-8 points on the Beaufort scale”, which ranges from 0 to 12, the last scale being a hurricane, a fire service official told Skai TV.

According to firefighters, quoted by the Athens News Agency, houses in the villages of Etochori and Pefka burned down in the morning.

According to firefighters, the fire is located near the villages of Agnantia and Antiia and is heading towards Alexandroupolis airport.

According to the same source, the airport authorities are on high alert due to thick smoke causing visibility problems.

According to authorities, three Coast Guard vessels, assisted by private vessels, are also on standby at the port of Alexandroupolis. According to them, three other Coast Guard vessels are also heading to the area.

In total, according to the authorities, 31 fire engines, 9 foot fire brigades, 14 airplanes and 4 helicopters with the support of volunteers are working to extinguish the fire in this area.

In Greece, in the middle of a heat wave, a fire that started on July 18 and was fanned by strong winds destroyed almost 17,770 hectares in 10 days on Rhodes, a tourist island in the Aegean Sea.

About 20,000 people, mostly tourists, had to be evacuated.

Then new fires broke out, in particular on another tourist island, Corfu (northwest), where about 2,500 people had to be evacuated.