Greek authorities are continuing to battle scattered fires on the outskirts of Athens as officials take stock of the damage wreaked by a disaster that forced mass evacuations and killed at least one person.
On Tuesday, the third day of one of the worst wildfires in living memory, firefighters were helped by a drop in winds as they sought to contain the remnants of an inferno that had reached the capital’s northern suburbs and decimated homes and businesses.
“Forty hours after this extremely dangerous wildfire broke out we can now say that there is no active front, only scattered hotspots,” Greece’s climate crisis and civil protection minister, Vassilis Kikilias, said.
More than 700 firefighters, backed by water-bombing planes, forest commando units, the police, army, forest service employees and volunteers, had helped extinguish the blazes.
“[They] fought the fire in north-eastern Attica with superhuman effort,” Kikilias added. “We’re not talking about a simple fire that simply got out of control. We are talking about the most difficult and most dangerous scenario.”
As the fires tore through the countryside, homes, trees and cars, officials ordered thousands of people to evacuate, including from three hospitals, two monasteries and a children’s home. More than 30 emergency push alerts were sent to residents of the capital’s northern suburbs and in areas farther afield, ordering them to flee.
Rescue services from at least six countries weighed in with support after Athens requested assistance through the European Civil Protection Mechanism. Turkey, although not an EU member state, was among them.
Greece, a “hotspot” on the frontline of the climate emergency, has endured an exceptionally hot and dry summer. Successive heatwaves – June and July were the hottest months on record – helped turn terrain across the Mediterranean country into a tinderbox.
When Sunday’s wildfire erupted in the vicinity of Varnava, 35km (22 miles) north-east of Athens, firefighters were soon battling flames that in some cases reached 25 metres (115ft) high, fanned by gale force winds and advancing at lightning speed.
The rapidity of the fire was such that 400 sq km of land were destroyed, with homeowners looking on helplessly. At least one person was killed: the body of a woman, who was reportedly Moldovan, was found in a factory in the suburb of Vrilissia.
Questions are being asked. The sight of the fires racing through suburban streets has shocked Greeks, with the country’s opposition parties wasting little time in lambasting the prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’s centre-right government for its handling of the disaster.
Criticism has also come from the media. “Enough is enough,” said the front page of the newspaper Ta Nea, while the left-wing Efsyn daily, referring to the building that houses the prime minister’s office, declared: “Evacuate Maximou.”
The government has announced support measures, saying that Mitsotakis will chair a crisis meeting at 6pm local time on Tuesday. The 15-strong aid package includes an initial support payment of €10,000 (£8,500) for properties deemed dangerous for use – marked with a red X – and €5,000 for those deemed temporarily unsuitable, marked with a yellow X.
Fire-stricken residents will also be able to apply for financial assistance and interest-free loans to rebuild damaged properties while being absolved from paying property taxes for three years. Business owners will be let off paying tax for at least six months.
But the opposition criticised the measures, saying they were just an “aspirin” doled out by a government bent on damage control.
“The government is attempting damage control after the huge and catastrophic fire that raged for 40 hours in Attica, even entering the urban fabric [of Athens] and leaving behind a dead woman,” Efsyn wrote.