Greece is experiencing a new heatwave as wildfires rage

Greece prepared for a new wave of soaring temperatures on Tuesday, as two popular tourist islands were ravaged by wildfires.

According to the national weather forecaster EMY, the temperature is expected to reach 41 degrees Celsius (106 degrees Fahrenheit) in Athens and 44 degrees Celsius in central Greece.

The extremely hot weather follows a weekend of extreme heat and thousands of locals and tourists fleeing forest fires in Rhodes and Corfu, with the prime minister warning that the nation is "at war" with the flames.

On Sunday, the temperature in Gythio, in the southern Peloponnese peninsula, reached 46.4 degrees Celsius, but failed to reach the national record of 48 degrees Celsius.

Authorities evacuated nearly 2,500 people from the Greek island of Corfu on Monday, after tens of thousands of people fled fires on the island of Rhodes, with many terrified tourists scrambling to return home via evacuation flights.

More than 260 firefighters continued to battle flames on Rhodes for the eighth consecutive day, aided by two helicopters and two planes.

On Greece's second-largest island, Evia, where fires were also raging, the Greek civil protection authorities issued an overnight evacuation order in one northern community.

"We are exclusively focused on the battlefront," Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told the Greek parliament on Monday.

He cautioned that the country faced "another three difficult days" before the forecasted reduction in high temperatures.

Greece's minister of civil protection, Vassilis Kikilias, stated that crews had fought over 500 fires in 12 consecutive days.

Many regions of the United States were placed on "red alert" on Tuesday, indicating that there is an extreme risk of forest fires, exacerbated by strong winds.