Canadair plane fighting wildfires in Greece crashes with 2 aboard

A Canadian-built plane fighting wildfires in Greece crashed on Tuesday, as Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis warned of tough days ahead, with blazes destroying homes and forcing the evacuation of thousands of tourists from the island of Rhodes.

State broadcaster ERT showed footage of the plane dropping water over a fire, then crashing into a hillside and bursting into flames.

The Greek air force said there were two airmen aboard the amphibious Canadair CL-215 plane when it crashed over the island of Evia, east of Athens.

Two helicopters had rushed to the scene to carry out a search and rescue operation, the air force said. It gave no details on the fate of the airmen.

Hundreds of firefighters, helped by forces from Turkey and Slovakia, were battling blazes that have raged on the island of Rhodes since last Wednesday, resurging in hot, windy conditions. More emergency flights were due to take home vacationers.

Mitsotakis said on Tuesday the next few days would be difficult, with conditions possibly improving after Thursday.

"All of us are standing guard," he said. "In the face of what the entire planet is facing, especially the Mediterranean, which is a climate change hot spot, there is no magical defence mechanism. If there was, we would have implemented it."

WATCH | Out-of-control fires ravage Greek island:

An assessment by scientists published Tuesday said human-induced climate change has played an "absolutely overwhelming" role in the extreme heat waves that have swept across North America, southern Europe and China this month.

In Greece, a prosecutor on Rhodes launched an investigation into the causes of the fires and the preparedness and response of authorities, ERT said. It said about 10 per cent of the island's land area had burned.

Lefteris Laoudikos, whose family owns a small hotel in the seaside resort town of Kiotari, one of the epicentres of the fire over the weekend, said its 200 guests — mainly from Germany, Britain and Poland — fled in rental cars.

He said his father, cousin and two others were trying to douse the flames using a nearby water tank.

"On Saturday, when I saw the wind and that there were no planes, I told everyone, 'We're going to burn today,'" he said.

"My father saved the hotel. I called him, and he didn't want to leave. He told me, 'If I leave there will be no hotel.'"