Firefighters battle a wildfire in the wider area of Megara, Attica, August 2. The fire continues to burn in the Megara area, on the edge of the urban zone. Photo: EPA/ORESTIS PANAGIOTOU
Greek firefighters on Monday battled for a fourth day a fire that started in Viotia, the southern part of Central Greece, and expanded to Western Attica, which has burned homes, livestock and farmland. The fires in Greece have so far claimed the lives of five firefighters.
The Fire Service said the problem is worst in the mountainous area of Kandili and Agia Skepi, residential settlements in Western Attica, and south and southeast of the coastal villages of Psatha and Porto Germeno, where most firefighting forces have been concentrated. Emergency messages were sent to civilians to evacuate their homes.
“Fire Service forces remain very strong in the field and are operating along the entire perimeter to bring this particularly difficult fire under control as quickly as possible,” the Fire Service’s spokesperson, Giannis Artopoios, told state TV on Monday.
A total of 450 firefighters, 22 forest commando teams and 125 fire engines are battling the flames, while 12 helicopters, including two for aerial coordination and 11 aircraft, are assisting from the air.
“The ecological disaster is enormous; thousands of acres of forest and grasslands and especially areas that have been burned in the recent or distant past, all of this has been destroyed, unfortunately,” Panagiotis Margetis, Mayor of Megara, in Western Attica, said on Monday.
Strong ground firefighting forces are operating in Western Attica, including on-site units, water tankers and military and local authority vehicles. Aerial vehicles are continuously dropping water in hard-to-reach areas.
“Our goal is to immediately … return the areas to normality as quickly as possible,” Deputy Minister of Climate Crisis and Civil Protection Kostas Katsafados said on Monday. Katsafados said checks on the affected areas will begin immediately to record the damage to homes, businesses and public infrastructure, and to provide compensation to those affected.
Regarding compensation to farmers, the Agricultural Insurance Organisation will record the damage done to plant capital, while compensation for livestock farmers who have lost animals and assets will also be examined.
So far, five firefighters have lost their lives battling the fires. Two firefighters, a Greek and a Dane, lost their lives on August 2, when a Bell firefighting helicopter collided in mid-air with another helicopter while attempting to extinguish a forest fire that broke out in Psatha, a coastal area in Western Attica.
Two firefighters lost their lives in Krya Vrysi in Rethymno, Crete, on July 30, when they were surrounded by flames, and another firefighter lost his life while on duty in a fire that had broken out in Gytheio, in the Peloponnese.
