On Wednesday, 130 fires still raged in Greece. “There is so much ash in the atmosphere that if it did rain now, it would be disastrous for the fruit,” said Neil Denny of importer Richard Hochfeld. “But what is forecast is a further heatwave, not rain.”

Mimi Spiliopoulou of exporter M&CP Trading based in Corinth said that temperatures have already risen. “It is 39°C today,” she said Tuesday. “So far we don’t have any problems with the fires and the grape crop, but it is already a very difficult season.”

With so much vegetation burned, heat in the atmosphere is not being absorbed by plants pushing temperatures an extra degree or more higher.

So far there have not been any problems with trucking fruit out of Greece because of the fires as they are mainly in the Peloponnese, which does not affect routes northwards from Corinth, but exporters and their UK importers are checking the situation carefully.

Denny forecasts that fruit from Corinth will finish early in about two weeks time. “Then we will have fruit from Kavala which will take us through into October,” he said. “But we are all looking forward to getting September behind us and waiting for Brazil to start in October and hoping it stays dry there.”

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