A MASSIVE FOREST fire has filled the skies over Athens with smoke and begun burning through the Greek capital’s northern suburbs as firefighters struggle desperately to contain the blaze.
The Greek Government has made a call for international assistance to fight the rampant wildfire as it continues to engulf cars, houses and other buildings, blanketing the city centre in ash and forcing thousands of people to flee.
In scenes never before seen in the ancient city, residents wearing masks against the choking smoke were desperately dousing their homes with water hoses in the leafy suburbs of Nea Penteli and Vrilissia in an effort to render them less vulnerable to the advancing fire.
At times the flames have reached heights of 25 metres.
Power cuts have been reported in several parts of the capital and also affected traffic lights at major junctions in the centre.
The efforts of the embattled firefighters have been made more difficult by strong, gusting winds.
Television footage showed several cars in both suburban areas gutted by fire and the roofs of stately homes burning as water-bombing helicopters roared overhead.
“The situation is dramatic,” Penteli mayor Natassa Kosmopoulou told news portal newsit.gr.
“A school and homes are on fire, and I can see the fire coming towards the town hall,” she said.
The local fire department said 685 firefighters, backed by 27 teams specially trained to tackle wildfires and including more than 80 armed forces personnel, were battling the flames.
Greece has formally called for EU assistance, a spokesman said.
“The EU civil protection mechanism was activated upon request of the Greek authorities,” EU spokesman Balazs Ujvari said in a statement, adding that Italy, France, the Czech Republic and Romania were sending units to help.
French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said Paris was sending 180 firefighters, 55 trucks and a helicopter to assist their hard-pressed Greek colleagues.
More than 190 vehicles were deployed, while 17 water-dropping planes and 16 helicopters were providing aerial support.
The wildfire has been racing through pine forests on the city’s outskirts that have been left tinder-dry by repeated heatwaves this summer.
June and July of this year were the hottest months ever recorded in Greece, which also recorded its warmest winter ever. Greece has already suffered deadly wildfires this year, as has neighbouring Turkey.
Authorities are facing “an exceptionally dangerous fire, which we have been fighting for more than 20 hours under dramatic circumstances”, climate crisis and civil protection minister Vassilis Kikilias said this morning.
A children’s hospital and a military hospital, two monasteries and a children’s home have been evacuated, while one more hospital was to be evacuated this afternoon.
More than two dozen emergency push alerts were sent to mobile phones in the area warning people to flee. The number of destroyed buildings is not yet clear.
“The wind would go in one direction and then in the other. The smoke was suffocating. You couldn’t see. Your eyes teared up. You couldn’t breathe. You couldn’t see the house,” said Spyros Gorilas, a resident of the area of Dioni who hosed down his house with water to save it from the flames.
“Even the helicopter that dropped water, you couldn’t see it. You could only hear it. Nothing else.”
Last night, the police department said 380 police officers with 77 vehicles, 36 motorcycles, three buses and four vans were assisting in the evacuations, and by mid-morning had helped move more than 250 people away from the path of the flames.
It posted a video on its social media channels showing police officers carrying elderly people in their arms out of houses and to waiting vehicles, against a backdrop of a night sky turned red from the flames and smoke.
Several large Athens municipalities ordered partial evacuations, including Penteli, Vrilissia and Halandri.
“Because of the direction of the wind we have decided on a precautionary evacuation,” Halandri mayor Simos Roussos told ERT. “The fire is very close.”
Authorities opened the Olympic stadium in northern Athens and other stadiums to house thousands of people evacuated from the path of the blaze. Three major hospitals have been placed on standby.
One firefighter suffered serious burns, another was hospitalised with breathing trouble and 13 other people were treated for milder respiratory problems, fire brigade spokesman Vassilis Vathrakogiannis said.
Several smaller communities and towns, including Marathon, which gave the Olympic long distance race its name, started to evacuate yesterday.
“We are facing a biblical catastrophe,” said Marathon’s mayor Stergios Tsirkas. “Our whole town is engulfed in flames,” he told the Skai television channel.
With reporting from AFP and Press Association
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