A huge forest blaze in Cyprus has killed four people, destroyed homes and forced evacuations of villages as Greece, Israel and other countries deployed fire-fighting planes to the Mediterranean island.

Here are a few reasons to pick up a copy of The Guardian on Wednesday. Find these stories and much more when you grab a copy of The Guardian on Wednesday.⁣ ⁣

Here are a few reasons to pick up a copy of The Guardian on Wednesday⁣. Find these stories and much more when you grab a copy of The Guardian on Wednesday.⁣

A total of 141 firefighters have been mobilised to contain a forest blaze at the base of Mount Penteli north of Athens. The fire service are backed by 10 helicopters and eight firefighting planes, but said strong winds were complicating operations.

Strong winds are hampering firefighters' efforts. Alerts have been sent to residents warning them to "be ready to follow instructions."

Turkish firefighters continue to battle deadly wildfires that forced the evacuation of entire villages and hotels on the Mediterranean coast. At least four people were reported dead Thursday and more than 180 injured.

Flames and smoke rise above a forest in the Athens suburb of Varympompi as a fire broke out, cutting a section of the main motorway linking Athens to northern and southern Greece, as the nation reels under a severe heatwave.

People on the outskirts of Athens are left to grapple with the devastation caused by forest fires. More than 500 firefighters, a dozen water-bombing planes and five helicopters have been battling the blazes outside the capital which are now reportedly under control.

Firefighters supported by firefighting aircraft work to put out a large forest fire, as smoke is visible from much of the city of Jerusalem. The fire threatened the villages of Beit Meir, Shoeva and Ramat Raziel, west of Jerusalem, police said in a statement.

Fires sweep through a forest in Chiquitania, a transition zone between the Amazon and the Gran Chaco lowlands in eastern Bolivia, where large blazes have already ravaged at least 200,000 hectares, according to reports from local authorities.

The Hlanzoun riparian swamp forest in southern Benin, one of the last of its kind in the country, is home to unparallelled flora and fauna. Yet according to ecologists its unique biodiversity is under threat from poaching, agriculture and ever-increasing human exploitation.

Thousands of migrants, mostly from the Middle East, have crossed or tried to cross the 400-kilometre (249-mile) Belarus-Poland border since August. Three teenagers prepare to spend a cold night in the forest in southeast Poland, as one recounts how he is making the journey for a third time after twice being sent back into Belarus by Polish border guards in recent weeks. All three are from Iraq's hard-pressed LGBTQ community, saying they fled their homeland because they faced harassment after protesting in favour of gay rights there.