Technologies

Greece’s fires: Causes, casualties and everything you need to know

It was the hottest summer in Greece since 1987.

Amid its fiercest heatwave in 30 years, Greece is facing a «natural disaster of unprecedented proportions.» Those are the words of the country’s prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who said in an address to the nation on Monday that firefighters had battled over 580 fires.

With the blazes well into their second week, at least two people have died, around 10% of the country’s forests have been burned, and the international community is sending supplies. «We may have done what was humanly possible, but sometimes that wasn’t enough in the uneven battle with nature,» Mitsotakis said Monday night.

window.CnetFunctions.logWithLabel(‘%c One Trust ‘, «Service loaded: script_twitterwidget with class optanon-category-5»);

Confronting imagery of the flames has spread across social media, showing alarming scenes similar to catastrophic fires seen in Australia and California. It comes less than a month after floods devastated central Europe, and as Siberia, Turkey and Italy too battle intense wildfires.

The wildfires are thought to be a product of climate change, with extreme weather events made more likely by Earth’s warming atmosphere. On Monday the International Panel on Climate Change released its latest report, detailing the path humanity is charting to a potentially uninhabitable world.

When did the fire start?

The fires began in late July, in the city of Petras. As July turned to August, conflagrations occurred mainly in four more regions: Attica, Olympia, Messenia, and Evia. The fires in Attica and Evia are north and northeast of Athens — close enough for suburbs in Athens to literally feel the heat, with the blue summer sky now turned into a smoky grey — while the fires in Olympia and Messenia are in south western, more regional Greece.

The fires are blazing throughout much of the country, with Deputy Civil Protection Minister for Crisis Management Nikos Hardalias saying over 60 fires were active over the weekend. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said firefighters had battled over 560 fires in total.

window.CnetFunctions.logWithLabel(‘%c One Trust ‘, «Service loaded: script_twitterwidget with class optanon-category-5»);

Despite the breadth of the wildfires, the northeast island of Evia is the epicenter. The national government has urged residents of Evia to evacuate their homes, though many have defied orders. Boats have been ferrying thousands of Evia residents to safer parts of the country.

With no end immediately in sight, the blazes have already proven to be an ecological disaster. An estimated 10-12% of the country’s forests have been burned, amounting to 93,000 hectares of damage. Two people have died in the fires, including a firefighter, and 20 have been injured.

What caused the fires?

Extreme heat. Greece has experienced a particularly hot European summer, said to be the most sustained heatwave since one in 1987 that killed over 1,000. The heatwave has also affected Italy and Turkey, with wildfires in the latter country having claimed eight lives already.

Potential arson is being investigated as a cause, with at least three people having been arrested for arson thus far. However, the heat conditions that allowed the blazes to spark and blaze are being blamed at least in part by climate change. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis was unequivocal on the blaze’s cause: «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.

«We have seen devastating fires in Turkey and Greece amid an intense and long-lasting heatwave in the Mediterranean,» said World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Secretary-General Petteri Taalas. «Siberia — a region traditionally associated with permafrost — has once again seen huge wildfires after exceptional heatwaves, fires and low Arctic sea ice in 2020.»

«The harsh reality of climate change is playing out in real time before our very eyes.»

An IPCC report published Monday contained a staggering amount of data and evidence that human activity is causing the planet to warm, and our window to arrest the process is closing. The report provides the most up-to-date estimates on the increasing likelihood the climate will surpass a 1.5-degree Celsius level of warming in the next decades, and — as IPCC reports have since 1990 — it urges immediate action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Is anyone helping Greece?

Thankfully, yes.

Over 20 countries have contributed to Greece’s battle against the wildfires. Firefighters have been sent by France, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Germany, Kuwait, Israel, Kuwait, Maldova, Romania, Qatar, Serbia, Slovakia, the UK and the Ukraine. Others, like Russia, Spain and the US have sent airplanes and other vehicles.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections Hints, Answers and Help for Nov. 26, #899

Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle for Nov. 26, #899

Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Today’s NYT Connections puzzle is kind of tough, with a really goofy purple category. If you need help sorting the answers into groups, you’re in the right place. Read on for clues and today’s Connections answers.

The Times now has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. Players who are registered with the Times Games section can now nerd out by following their progress, including the number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.

Read more: Hints, Tips and Strategies to Help You Win at NYT Connections Every Time

Hints for today’s Connections groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Maybe?

Green group hint: Kate and Liz would also qualify.

Blue group hint: Think banking terms.

Purple group hint: Furry friends, with a twist.

Answers for today’s Connections groups

Yellow group: Verbs expressing possibility.

Green group: Women’s nicknames.

Blue group: Financial abbreviations.

Purple group: Backwards animals.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is verbs expressing possibility. The four answers are can, could, may and might.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is women’s nicknames. The four answers are Deb, Jan, Kat and Sue.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is financial abbreviations. The four answers are APR, CFO, IRA and SEC.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is backwards animals. The four answers are flow (wolf), god (dog), mar (ram) and tab (bat).

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.

Toughest Connections puzzles

We’ve made a note of some of the toughest Connections puzzles so far. Maybe they’ll help you see patterns in future puzzles.

#5: Included «things you can set,» such as mood, record, table and volleyball.

#4: Included «one in a dozen,» such as egg, juror, month and rose.

#3: Included «streets on screen,» such as Elm, Fear, Jump and Sesame.

#2: Included «power ___» such as nap, plant, Ranger and trip.

#1: Included «things that can run,» such as candidate, faucet, mascara and nose.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for Nov. 26 #633

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for Nov. 26, No. 633.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Today’s NYT Strands puzzle has a fun topic, especially if you love a certain mode of travel. Some of the answers are difficult to unscramble, so if you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: All aboard!

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: Choo-choo!

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

GASP, GASPS, GAPS, PERT, SLEEP, GRATE, RATE, RAIN, BOAT, PASS

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:

COACH, QUIET, DINING, SLEEPER, OBSERVATION

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is PASSENGERTRAIN. To find it, start with the P that’s five letters down on the far left, and wind across and up.

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.

Toughest Strands puzzles

Here are some of the Strands topics I’ve found to be the toughest in recent weeks.

#1: Dated slang, Jan. 21. Maybe you didn’t even use this lingo when it was cool. Toughest word: PHAT.

#2: Thar she blows! Jan.15. I guess marine biologists might ace this one. Toughest word: BALEEN or RIGHT.

#3: Off the hook, Jan. 9. Similar to the Jan. 15 puzzle in that it helps to know a lot about sea creatures. Sorry, Charlie. Toughest word: BIGEYE or SKIPJACK.