AS WILDFIRES tear their way through Greece, a small team of Welsh firefighters have been deployed to help combat the blazes and give the Greek fire department some respite.

Craig Hope, 46, is a fire analyst and wildfire expert with South Wales Fire Service and has been sent to help out as part of an international effort involving countries such as Germany and the Czech Republic.

Other UK firefighters have been sent to Greece in what is the first deployment of UK firefighters abroad.

There is no way of knowing how long that the firefighters will be in Greece, but the team is expected to be there for at least 10 days.

Mr Hope, who is from the Rhondda Valley but first enlisted in Gwent Fire Brigade in 1995, said: “We’re just doing our bit assisting the communities in Greece and assisting the Greek fire service so they can get back to some sort of normality because they are overwhelmed.

“There are an awful lot of fires, very large fires, uncontrollable fires, and it's just good to be able to help.

“We’re here with hoses and hand tools, just digging out any hot spots, wetting down areas, and just reassuring the communities.

“What this means is the Greek fire service can go back to the stations, it can regroup or even be ready to respond to further incidents because there are lots of fires in this area.”

Mr Hope leads a project in South Wales dedicated to finding more effective ways of fighting wildfires.

Methods include using fire to fight fire, which involves burning small areas in a controlled way ahead of a large inferno so that there is no fuel for the larger blaze to burn through.

Other ways include managing vegetation and constructing firebreaks.

Mr Hope has trained a lot of firefighters following the success of these methods in South Wales and has been abroad offering specialist training to other fire departments.

In Greece, his job is first and foremost to use these methods to help quell the flames, but he hopes that he will help teach the Greek fire service better ways to fight the blaze while he is in the country.

“The land where we are where we are is just totally overgrown, it's just a monoculture of sort of forestry and scrub,” said Mr Hope.

“So, again, talking to the Greek firefighters, we are just discussing different ways to fight fires that we use in South Wales.

“I’ve trained a lot of people how we can use fire to fight fires, but the Greeks do not do that.

“So we’ve been talking to them about how we can all help each other.”

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Mr Hope expects there to be more wildfires in the UK if climate change escalates further.

“I don't really think we have seen the full effects of climate change in the UK,” said Mr Hope.

“But if you think back to 2018 when we had the summer fire season in Cwmcarn, we spent weeks in the forest there.

“And then we've had very heavy downpours and storms.

“So climate is changing and we need to learn and get ahead of that, and that’s what I hope my legacy in the fire service is - to make it better for future firefighters combatting things like climate change.”