Wildfire descends on Croatian tourist town, injures 36

Aug 14 (Reuters) – A wildfire in Croatia driven by strong winds descended on the tourist town of Omis overnight, engulfing houses, forcing about 1,000 people to evacuate and injuring dozens, fire brigade and health officials said on Friday. 

Flames enveloped settlements and trees over 1,000 hectares, turning the night sky red above Omis, a scenic town on Croatia’s prized Dalmatian coast surrounded by trees and rocky hills.

Of thirty-six people treated by ambulance services in the city of Split, about 25 km (15.5 miles) to the north, 14 were hospitalised and seven had life-threatening injuries, health officials said.

Emergency shelters, opened in several towns on the stretch form Omis to Split, accommodated about 1,000 people overnight.

“It was a strong fire, it swept everything on its way…there has been huge material damage,” Chief Fire Commander Slavko Tucakovic said.

The fire appeared to have calmed on Friday morning and there were no open flames, he said. Part of the firefighting force and four aircraft were redeployed to another fire further south in the Peljesac peninsula, a forested area known for vineyards.

Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic was on the way to Omis with several government ministers, local media reported.

Hot weather and drought that scientists link to climate change have created ideal conditions for wildfires across Europe this summer, especially in France, Spain and Greece. The Balkans has also endured several heatwaves. 

The fires have threatened tourism at the heart of holiday season. Hundreds of holidaymakers fled a beach town in northern Greece by boat on Thursday as a blaze raced across a forest towards the shore. 

In Croatia, 286 firefighters, 90 fire vehicles and four aircraft battled the fire through the night, Tucakovic said. A stretch of a major coastal highway was shut. 

“Everything flared up in a second,” Goran Lović, the owner of a cafe near where the fire broke out in Lokva Rogoznica, told the Jutarnji List newspaper.

“It just happened all of a sudden, there was an open flame in the part where there is a forest and no houses.”

(Reporting by Antonis Pothitos; Editing by Edward McAllister)