Wildfires on Greek holiday island of Chios: Shocking European Space Agency images capture scale of disaster from space

These shocking images capture the horror of the wildfires raging on the Greek holiday island of Chios this week. The flames are still devastating parts of the island, with the European Space Agency (ESA) releasing these shocking pictures of the scene - from miles above the Earth’s surface.

Hundreds of firefighters have been battling the blaze for days, which started on Sunday (June 22), with a number of villages ordered to evacuate as officials feared they would be devastated by the searing heat.

On Monday, the ESA’s Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite caught the disaster on camera - with the pictures beamed back showing a dense smoke plume rising from the island and drifting south-west across the Aegean Sea.

The Greek government declared a state of emergency after the blazes got started, with fire crews battling to get the situation under control, backed by air support as the island faced power outages and water shortages. Flames have been devastated several areas of forest and agricultural areas of the island, with firefighting reinforcements being sent from Athens, Thessaloniki and the nearby island of Lesbos.

By Tuesday (June 23), around 444 firefighters with 85 vehicles were tackling the blaze, with 11 helicopters and two water-dropping planes providing support from the skies. The fire department has sent an arson investigation team to Chios to examine the cause of the fire.

“We are faced with simultaneous fires in multiple, geographically unconnected parts of the island – a pattern that cannot be considered coincidental,” climate crisis and civil protection minister, Giannis Kefalogiannis, said on Monday.

He said experts were “very seriously examining the possibility of an organised criminal act. In other words, arson” and that police on the island had been reinforced, while military patrols had been doubled.

“Whoever thinks that they can play with the lives of citizens and cause chaos with premeditated actions will be led to court,” Mr Kefalogiannis said. “Arson is a serious crime and will be dealt with as such.”

Wildfires are frequent in Greece during the summer season. In 2018, a massive fire swept through the seaside town of Mati, east of Athens, trapping people in their homes and on roads as they tried to flee. More than 100 died, including some who drowned trying to swim away from the flames.

Last year, a number of forest fires hit the Attica region - spanning a range of some 30km, devastating around 100 houses to the ground in what was branded “Greece’s worst wildfire of the year 2024”.