Greece’s worst wildfire of the year killed one person and continued to burn on the outskirts of the capital Athens on Tuesday, although lighter winds and firefighting efforts had helped reduce its intensity, authorities said.
Hundreds of firefighters backed by fire engines and water bombers battled the blaze that broke out on Sunday near the village of Varnavas, 35 kilometres north of Athens, torching homes, vehicles and swathes of bone-dry forest.
Stoked by gale-force winds, the blaze leaped from a wooded, hilly area into the suburbs on Monday, choking the city with smoke and ash and stirring panic in neighbourhoods that had not seen such a fire so close to the centre in decades.
“Thirty-five years living here, a fire had never reached this area,” said Meletis Makris, a 65-year-old pensioner in Vrilissia, a suburban municipality about 14 kilometres from central Athens.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis is expected to chair a ministerial meeting later on Tuesday. The Greek government has announced compensation and relief measures for those who have lost homes or property.
By Monday afternoon, the blaze reached Vrilissia where a 64-year-woman was found dead inside a factory, witnesses said.
The cause of the wildfire is not yet determined.
Winds were expected to pick up again later in the day on Tuesday and the country will remain on high fire alert until at least Thursday, with strong winds and temperatures forecast to reach 40 C.
‘Unpredictable’ blaze challenges firefighters
Wildfires have been a common feature of Greek summers for years, but climate change has brought hotter weather and less rain, creating ideal conditions for large-scale fires.
The southern European country experienced its warmest winter on record this year and was on track for its hottest summer, with scant rain in many areas for months.
“The wildfire had all the characteristics that we as firefighters don’t want a forest fire to have. A combination of hot, dry and windy [conditions],” Nikos Lavranos, head of the Greek federation of fire service employees, told Greek TV.
“It was extremely aggressive, difficult to manage and unpredictable,” he said.
Blazes amid hot weather have broken out across southern Europe this summer, including Spain and the Balkans.
Hot, dry conditions in Greece have fuelled a fast-moving wildfire near Athens and forced tens of thousands of people to flee their homes.
Damage to 100 homes
Greece’s National Observatory said satellite images showed the fire had damaged around 10,000 hectares of land. Local newspaper Proto Thema said the damage spanned 100 square kilometres and included 100 homes.
Residents and firefighters returned to some areas of northern Athens on Tuesday to assess the damage — kitchens and living rooms blackened by fire, ceilings caved in and cars reduced to sooty frames.
“My house was utterly destroyed, even the walls fell down. There’s nothing left,” said Sakis Morfis, 70, a Vrilissia resident. “The only thing I cared about was saving my dogs, so I left everything [else] behind.”
More than 30 areas, which included three hospitals, were subject to evacuation orders, with power cuts in parts of the wider Athens region. Passenger ferries heading to the port of Rafina, northeast of the capital, were diverted.
Greece has activated the European Union’s Civil Protection Mechanism and is expecting assistance from France, Italy and the Czech Republic with aircraft and firefighters. Spain and Turkey have also offered help.
Opposition parties accused the government of not doing enough to prevent the disaster. Syriza, the leftist main opposition party, questioned the number of aircraft battling the blaze. The socialist Pasok party said Greeks were paying the price of poor fire prevention policies.
Measures announced by the climate crisis and civil protection ministry on Tuesday to help those affected included rent subsidies, a three-year property tax exemption, and financial aid to restore damaged homes and businesses.