Firefighting helicopters collide midair in Greece as wildfires rage across Europe

Two Greek firefighting helicopters collided in midair on Sunday as they were battling a wind-driven wildfire west of Athens, sending one aircraft crashing to the ground, footage showed.

The aircraft were Bell helicopters operating over the Psatha area west of Athens, each with a two-person crew. 

Two of the crew members, one Greek and one Danish national, were killed. Two other crew members, one Greek and one British national, were recovered alive. 

No further details about the surviving crew members were immediately available. It’s not clear if the deceased crew members were on the same helicopter. 

The collision laid bare the danger at the most volatile front of Europe’s wildfire emergency. Strong winds drove flames deeper into the region of the Greek capital and forced fresh evacuations.

The fire began Friday near Agios Vasileios before sweeping toward Porto Germeno and into the forested mountains west of Athens. Firefighters evacuated 254 people by sea Friday and another 12 Saturday — often the last escape route when fire and smoke cut the few roads from coastal communities.

Nearly 500 firefighters and 23 aircraft have been deployed to fight the fire, but gale-force winds drove flames through dry forest and crippled the response, preventing some aircraft from reaching the sea to collect water.

Flames spread rapidly through western Attica, the region that contains Athens, threatening communities and an industrial district as violent gusts prevented firefighting aircraft from collecting water from the sea. The advance carried grim resonance in a region where the 2018 Mati wildfire, Europe’s deadliest blaze this century, killed 104 people.

Authorities ordered the evacuation of Kandili, Agia Skepi and Toutouli as smoke rose over the mountains. Crews were particularly concerned about Porto Germeno, a seaside community on the Gulf of Corinth. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis was briefed on the operation.

Elsewhere in Greece, flames threatened homes on Kefalonia, forcing evacuations from inland communities as aircraft made water drops over the Ionian island. Firefighters battled another blaze near Nea Tenedos in Halkidiki.

Earlier this week, two firefighters died fighting a fire on Crete, while a third was killed in the Peloponnese.

“A pristine forest, a paradise, was surrendered to the hands of the fire,” local farmer Minas Tzortzanis said Saturday. “There are no words to explain what has happened. Destruction. Total destruction.”

In addition to the blaze in Greece, fires in France and Spain have driven roughly a third of a million people from homes and vacation sites, emptied communities at the height of the European summer and stretched emergency services across simultaneous disasters.

The continent entered 2026 after its worst fire year on record, with more than 3,860 square miles burned in 2025. Over the past four decades, wildfires have been linked to nearly 800 deaths across much of Europe, according to the European Environment Agency.

Europe is the world’s fastest-warming continent. It has warmed more than twice the global average since the 1980s, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. Human-caused climate change made the extreme fire-weather conditions behind this year’s French blazes at least twice as likely, scientists at World Weather Attribution found in a rapid analysis conducted while the fires were still burning.