Fires raged across Greece on Wednesday, destroying forests on Rhodes and gutting homes close to Athens as a new heatwave loomed and threatened to further stoke tinderbox conditions across the country, writes Reuters.

Firefighters backed with air water bombers battled a resurgence of flames west of Athens which prompted mass evacuations on Tuesday. Fresh evacuation orders were issued on Wednesday for three areas threatened by encroaching flames.

On the island of Rhodes, authorities sent reinforcements to combat a fire which erupted in a densely wooded mountainous area and ordered the evacuation of three villages as a precaution.

“The biggest front now is the fire on Rhodes, its not close to villages but it is big”, a fire brigade official said.

Fires are common in Greece, but hotter and drier summers have turned the Mediterranean into a wildfire hotspot in recent years. Four aircraft sent from Italy and France joined firefighting efforts on Wednesday, authorities said. Firefighters across the country, boosted by crews from Romania, Poland and Slovakia, have been deployed to help battle the blazes. Israel will send two firefighting planes to Greece to assist the firefighting effort and will stay there as long as required, the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.