France and Italy send firefighting planes to Greece as wildfires burn

A firefighter stands next to a dog as he watches smoke billowing from a fire in Pournari village near Athens, Greece (Thanassis Stavrakis/AP)

Italy and France are each sending two firefighting planes to Greece to help it cope with wildfires burning on multiple fronts around Athens, with more extreme heat on the way.

The planes and their teams of firefighters are part of an EU civil protection mechanism, and they will join some 30 Romanian firefighters already stationed in Greece as part of a seasonal EU fire programme, European officials said.