Athens residents evacuated as wildfires spread near capital

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Thousands of Athens residents have been evacuated from their homes as strong winds blew wildfires towards the northern outskirts of the Greek capital on Monday.

A wall of flames over 25 metres high and covering a 30km radius is encroaching on the city, ERT, the Greek state broadcaster reported.

“The atmosphere [is filled with] smoke, you can’t breathe easily,” Christodoulos Kyrou-Tsakalos, who lives in the capital’s eastern neighbourhood of St Demetrios, told the Financial Times.

“The situation is not good. It’s not good,” he said, adding that firefighters and aeroplanes dropping water were “trying their best” but that the strong winds were scuppering their efforts.

“We just need the weather to be calmer, because with these strong winds, it’s impossible to put out everything.”

Hundreds of firefighters and dozens of aircraft have been fighting the blazes since fires broke out on Sunday, and Greece has appealed to the international community for help.

“The situation remains extremely difficult in areas of northeastern
Attica, due to the fire that has been developing since yesterday,” the Athens fire department said Monday. “Flares and spots are continuous, constantly creating new outbreaks and spreading rapidly, aided by very strong winds,” it said, adding that over 700 firefighters had been deployed to the area, with international assistance.

The European Commission said that the Greek authorities had requested help from the bloc’s civil protection mechanism, a centralised system for co-ordinating help from other member states.

Two jets from Italy, a helicopter from France and two firefighting teams from the Czech Republic and Romania had been sent, according to an EU official.

France has also offered to send 180 rescue workers and firefighters to the region on Tuesday.

No deaths have been reported so far.

The National Observatory of Athens, the country’s oldest scientific institute, said their facilities were in “immediate danger” as wildfires had entered their grounds.

This is not the first time that wildfires have ravaged Greece. In 2023, the EU recorded the largest wildfire in over two decades in the north-eastern village of Avantas, which killed 18 people and led to 13,000 evacuations from the region.

Last year alone there were several hundred wildfires recorded by authorities, fuelled by the persistent drought conditions that have recurred over previous summers.

June and July were the nation’s hottest since records began in 1960, and some residents are exasperated with disruptions occurring each year.

“What we’re witnessing today is the tip of the iceberg,” said Antonis Hadjikyriacou, a professor at Panteion University.

“There have been extremely serious and extensive wildfires for the past four or five years, and some of the most important nature reserves of Greece have been completely and utterly destroyed.”

Additional reporting by Alice Hancock in Brussels and Sarah White in Paris