Tens of thousands evacuated as major fire threatens Athens

BarcelonaA wildfire declared out of control on Sunday on the outskirts of Athens has forced firefighters to evacuate tens of thousands of people. Some 700 firefighters, 183 trucks, 17 planes and 15 helicopter tankers are working to control the blaze, which has a front of about 30 kilometers (19 miles), Greek Civil Protection Minister Vassilis Kikilias said Monday.

The fire started in the village of Varnava, some 40 kilometres (25 miles) north of Athens, and quickly spread south overnight, reaching the outskirts of the town of Penteli, just 15 kilometres (nine miles) north of the capital. The combination of strong winds, dry conditions and “difficult, inaccessible terrain in dense forest” was complicating the firefighting effort, Kikilias told a news conference. In all, it is estimated that more than 25 towns and 35,000 people had to be evacuated, including patients from three hospitals. Over the night and early Monday, special teams from the Greek police rescued some 250 people trapped, most of them in their homes, in the affected areas.

Authorities in some of the municipalities affected by the fire have denounced the lack of air and ground means to deal with the fire. “We need air means, we have been asking for them since the morning and we have not seen anything so far. The whole thing looks very bad, there are houses in danger of burning down,” criticised the head of the Grammatiko community, Spiros Zagaris.

Temperatures will rise to 36 degrees Celsius (96 degrees Fahrenheit) in Athens on Monday and “winds are expected to intensify further in the coming hours, which will exacerbate the fire,” Theodore Gianaros, a researcher at the observatory, told Reuters in Athens. The national meteorological service has issued a yellow heat alert for the Attica region for Tuesday, when temperatures could reach 37 degrees.

After its warmest winter on record and long periods of drought, Greece is set to record its hottest summer on record. The country has activated its maximum fire alert until at least Thursday, with temperatures expected to reach 40 degrees Celsius.