Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has blamed the nation's devastating wildfires on climate change, as firefighters waged a round-the-clock battle to save a former royal palace and the birthplace of the ancient Olympics.
A resurgent fire burned homes near Athens and blazes across southern Greece forced more evacuations on Thursday as weather conditions worsened.
As flames approached, fire crews went house-to-house to escort residents out of homes some 20 kilometres north of Athens.
The fire threatened the power supply to parts of the capital after damaging the transmission network, officials said.
Mr Mitsotakis said the devastating scenes reveal "the reality of climate change".
"If there are even few people who have reservations about whether climate change is real, I call on them to come here and see," he said from Ilia, where the flames had threatened Ancient Olympia.
Olympia is where flame lighting ceremonies for the modern summer and winter Olympics are held every two years.
"Our priority is always the protection of human life, followed by the protection of property, the natural environment and critical infrastructure," Mr Mitsotakis said.
Fuelled by the worst heatwave in decades, the fires drew closer to a summer palace at Tatoi, outside Athens, which was once used by the former Greek royal family.
As additional support arrived from Greece's military and EU countries, water-dropping planes and helicopters swooped over fires.
Dozens of villages and settlements were evacuated, including a beachside campsite and hotels on Evia, where boats were used to transport stranded vacationers to safety.
A heatwave baking southeast Europe for a second week has also triggered deadly fires in Turkey and Albania and blazes across the region.
North Macedonia's government on Thursday declared the country in a state of crisis for the next 30 days due to wildfires.
'Is this the world we want to live in?'
The EU Commissioner for the environment, Virginijus Sinkevicius, said the fires and extreme weather globally over the northern hemisphere summer were a clear signal for the need to address climate change.
"We are fighting some of the worst wildfires we've seen in decades. But this summer's floods, heatwaves and forest fires can become our new normality," he wrote in a tweet.
"We must ask ourselves: Is this the world we want to live in?
The EU bolstered assistance to fire-stricken countries, sending 40 French firefighters and tonnes of material to help Greece.
Greece's Civil Protection Agency said the risk of fires across southern Greece would increase further on Friday, with windy weather forecast for parts of the country, despite an expected slight dip in temperatures that reached 45 degrees Celsius (113 Fahrenheit) earlier this week.
The heatwave was described as Greece's worst since 1987.
Wires/ABC
