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Firefighters of the 1st Wildfire Special Operation Unit take cover as an helicopter takes off after leaving them in a drill near Villia village some 60 kilometers (37 miles) northwest of Athens, Greece, Friday, April 19, 2024. Greece's fire season officially starts on May 1 but dozens of fires have already been put out over the past month after temperatures began hitting 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit) in late March. This year, Greece is doubling the number of firefighters in specialized units to some 1,300, adopting tactics from the United States to try and outflank fires with airborne units scrambled to build breaks in the predicted path of the flames. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)Mostly funded by the European Union, Greece has launched a 2.1 billion euro ($2.3 billion) program to overhaul its disaster response capability, ordering new water-dropping aircraft, drones, fire trucks, training facilities, and an artificial intelligence-driven sensor network to detect early signs of smoke and flooding.
Originally published at The Associated Press