Greece’s firefighting efforts suffered a major setback on Sunday after two crew members aboard a firefighting helicopter were killed in a mid-air collision while tackling a wildfire near Athens. Television footage showed one helicopter bursting into flames before crashing after what appeared to be a rotor collision with another aircraft. A firefighting helicopter drops water over a cloud of smoke from a wildfire in the area of Porto Germeno, some 70 kilometres (45 miles) northwest of Athens in the region of Viotia, on August 2, 2026. Photo by ANGELOS TZORTZINIS / AFPNearly 500 firefighters were deployed to battle the fast-moving wildfire near Porto Germeno, about 70 kilometres northwest of Athens, as crews worked to stop it from spreading toward the capital. Greece’s National Observatory estimated that more than 6,500 hectares of land had already been destroyed by separate wildfires in the Gulf of Corinth region, including Porto Germeno.