The Porto Germeno fire reached a military firing range and activated unexploded ordnance. Heat, not a new bombardment, set the old rounds off. [1]

Al Jazeera reported Greek crews fighting the Gulf of Corinth blaze as flames crossed toward the range. India Today said the same ridge run that threatened Veniza also ignited the munitions. Emergency teams then had two jobs: hold the fire off Megara and stay off ground that could still explode. [1][2]

The complication is local and historical. Live-fire ranges store what did not detonate when it was supposed to. A megafire is an unplanned cook-off. Crews already working in 80-to-130-kilometre winds and after a midair collision now had a third constraint on where they could stand. [2]

Theodore Giannaros of the National Observatory said the Porto Germeno fire looked large enough to be classed a megafire, with burned area estimates climbing past 10,000 hectares. Homes already lost numbered more than 100. [2]

Greece's wildfire week now includes dead ground crews, dead air crews, and ammunition that waited years for this heat. The range is not a side story. It is the land the fire chose.

Sea evacuations from cut-off coves already showed how few roads this coast offers. A live range in the fire's path removes still more ground that crews can use.

-- DARA OSEI, London