Firefighters in Greece were battling scattered fires early Tuesday in hopes of containing the remnants of a massive wildfire that swept through the northern suburbs of the capital Athens, prompting evacuations and killing at least one person.
Strong winds that fanned the flames on Sunday and Monday abated overnight, prompting firefighters to declare there were no longer any active and advancing fronts and allowing them to concentrate their efforts on extinguishing the flames in hundreds of smoldering areas.
The arrival of more planes and firefighters from other countries was expected. after Athens asked for help from the European Union’s joint disaster response mechanism.
Authorities were racing against time to make as much progress as possible before Tuesday afternoon, when winds are expected to pick up again with gusts of between 60 and 70 kilometres per hour.
The fire that broke out on Sunday in the town of Varnava, northeast of Athens, has again to put the spotlight on whether Greece is prepared or not against forest fires and climate change.
Fanned by the wind, the fire grew into a 30-kilometre front of flames that in some places reached more than 25 metres in height, according to the ERT channel.
Residents in the northern suburbs of the city have once again witnessed how flames have devoured the green lung of the region that is home to half of the Greek population.
“The situation is very difficult. Every year it gets worse, much worse. Here in the centre of the country, in Attica, the fire has reached places and neighbourhoods that we had never imagined it could reach. We are afraid of losing everything,” Christos, a resident of the Kifisia neighbourhood in northern Athens, one of the suburbs of Attica that has suffered the most fires in recent years, told RFI.
“Yesterday I was very scared because suddenly the sky went dark and I thought, this is fire. And I was very scared because I live in the centre of Athens and I didn’t know where this was coming from,” says María Dolores Domenech, a Spaniard who has been living in the centre of Athens for two years.
Although in recent months the government of Kyriakos Mitsotakis has expanded the fleet of seaplanes and increased the Penalties and fines for arsonists that cause forest fires, Many citizens still think that the measures are insufficient and that the country is not prepared for the consequences of climate change.
International aid
France, Italy, the Czech Republic, Turkey, Serbia and Romania have sent seaplanes, firefighters and vehicles to reinforce the firefighting efforts. Turkish Agriculture Minister Ibrahim Yumakli said two planes and a helicopter had taken off from the country on Tuesday morning bound for Greece.
“I wish all the best to our colleagues who work under the motto ‘Forests are the common heritage of the world’,” Yumakli said on social media X.
Relations between Athens and Ankara are often tense, with disputes including territorial claims in the Aegean Sea, but the neighbours often put aside their differences when natural disasters such as earthquakes or fires strike and send aid to each other.
The fire started on Sunday afternoon near Lake Marathon, about 35 kilometres northeast of Athens, then spread up Mount Pendeli and to the north and northeast of the Greek capital.
Victims
Firefighters found the charred body of a woman at an industrial building in the Vrilissia suburb shortly after midnight. She is believed to have been an employee who was trapped inside the building, which is in an area under evacuation orders. More than a dozen people were treated by paramedics, most of them for smoke inhalation, and five firefighters suffered minor burns and breathing problems, the department said.
Three hospitals, one of them for children, two monasteries and a children’s residence were evacuated Monday afternoon. At least 30 alerts were sent to the cellphones of residents in several Athens suburbs and further afield urging them to flee.
The flames, which reached a height of around 25 metres, were fuelled by the strong winds on Monday, which hampered an operation that had 700 troops and almost three dozen planes and helicopters.
Six planes and six helicopters were scrambled early Tuesday morning to support hundreds of firefighters working on the ground, the department said. Dozens of homes and businesses have burned downbut for the moment there was no official figure.
The fire spread through pine forests, which were dry after repeated heat waves this summer. June and July were the hottest months ever recorded in Greece, which also experienced its warmest winter on record.
Suspects arrested
The fire department on Tuesday reported the arrest of two teenagers the day before on suspicion of setting a fire in Glyfada, a southern suburb of Athens, as firefighters were focused on battling the blaze in the north of the city. The Glyfada fire was quickly extinguished.
Although wildfires are common in the Mediterranean country during its hot, dry summers, authorities say climate change is causing larger and more frequent fires.
In 2018, a massive fire swept through the coastal town of Mati, east of Athens, trapping residents in their homes and on the road as they tried to flee. More than 100 people died, including some who drowned while trying to swim away from the flames.
Last year, 20 people lost their lives in the country’s wildfires, including 18 migrants who were trapped by the flames while walking through a forest in the northeast.