A firefighting helicopter releases a load of water from a suspended Bambi bucket over a burning forest.

ClimateAP · ReutersAug 2, 2026

Two crew are killed when two firefighting helicopters collide near Athens as wildfires burn across southern Europe

Two crew members were killed when two water-dropping helicopters collided while fighting a wildfire near Athens, Greece's fire service said; a British pilot survived. The crash came as Greece, France, Spain and other parts of southern Europe battled a wave of blazes fanned by a punishing summer heatwave. Thousands of firefighters and dozens of aircraft have been deployed across the region.

Analogies

The Great Fire of Rome (AD 64), recorded by Tacitus

Added to this were the wailings of terror-stricken women, the feebleness of age, the helpless inexperience of childhood, the crowds who sought to save themselves or others, dragging out the infirm or waiting for them, and by their hurry in the one case, by their delay in the other, aggravating the confusion.

Tacitus, Annals, Book 15.38 (trans. Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb), Perseus Digital Library →

The Great Fire of London (1666), from the diary of Samuel Pepys

And among other things, the poor pigeons, I perceive, were loth to leave their houses, but hovered about the windows and balconys till they were, some of them burned, their wings, and fell down.

Samuel Pepys, The Diary of Samuel Pepys, entry for 2 September 1666, Project Gutenberg →

The fall of Icarus, from Ovid's Metamorphoses

The vicinity of the scorching Sun softened the fragrant wax that fastened his wings. The wax was melted; he shook his naked arms, and, wanting his oar-like wings, he caught no more air.

Ovid, The Metamorphoses of Ovid, Book VIII (trans. Henry T. Riley), Project Gutenberg →

Phaethon scorches the earth, from Ovid's Metamorphoses

The highest altitudes are caught in flames, and as their moistures dry they crack in chasms. The grass is blighted; trees are burnt up with their leaves; the ripe brown crops give fuel for self destruction—Oh what small complaints! Great cities perish with their walls, and peopled nations are consumed to dust— the forests and the mountains are destroyed.

Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book 2 (trans. Brookes More, 1922), Perseus Digital Library →

A tranquil coastal landscape dominated by a ploughman and a shepherd, while in the lower right the legs of the drowning Icarus disappear into the sea beside a passing ship.

Pieter Bruegel the Elder, "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus" (c. 1560s)

His legs can be seen in the water just below the ship. The Sun, already half-set on the horizon, is a long way away; the flight did not reach anywhere near it.

"Landscape with the Fall of Icarus," Wikipedia →

A blazing conflagration engulfs the Houses of Parliament at night, its flames and smoke reflected across the River Thames as crowds watch from Westminster Bridge.

J. M. W. Turner, "The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons" (1834–35)

Along with thousands of other spectators, Turner himself witnessed the Burning of Parliament from the south bank of the River Thames, opposite Westminster.

"The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons," Wikipedia →