Firefighters continue to battle deadly blazes in Greece for the sixth straight day on Thursday, as anger mounts in ravaged areas near Athens over a repeat of the blazes.
At the gates of Athens, the devastating flames fanned by high temperatures and strong winds continue to progress on the foothills of Mount Parnes where the largest forest near the capital is located.
“The biggest fire fronts are (on Mount) Parnès where significant firefighting forces are trying to contain them,” said fire department spokesman Yannis Artopoios.
They have been threatening for two days a national park which is home to many species of birds, Kefalonia firs, Aleppo pines and oaks, according to firefighters.
Some 260 firefighters and ten planes are deployed in this region which mixes forest and urban fabric, about twenty kilometers north of the capital.
These fires also led to evacuations of residential areas.
In the small village of Aghia Paraskevi, at the foot of Mount Parnès, impregnated with a strong smell of burning, the alleys are emptied of their inhabitants on Thursday.
In places, the carcasses of charred cars and burnt trees testify to the advance in the past hours of the flames through the small gardens, the vegetable gardens and the alleys.
Locals, who had received an evacuation order, returned to the site to see the damage and volunteer to help.
Many are expressing anger and bitterness as major fires ravage Greece for the second time in a month after those on the islands of Rhodes, Corfu and Euboea and in the Athens region at the end of July.
Among them, Nikos Lazarou, a 32-year-old mechanic, talks about his “anger”. The fires “repeat every year, the authorities should take measures and the people too”, assures this man who lives in Germany.
“The state must really toughen the penalties (in the event of arson), this cannot continue, the whole country has burned down,” added Nikos Xagoraris, deputy mayor of the neighboring town of Acharnes, on the public channel ERT. , before bursting into tears.
Civil Protection Minister Vassilis Kikilias accused arsonists of lighting fires “endangering forests, properties and above all human lives”.
Speaking on television to those who start fires, he assured: “you are committing crimes against the country (…) we will find you, you will be responsible to justice.”
At the foot of Mount Parnès, nine arson attempts were recorded Thursday morning, he said.
In a few days, the fires burned more than 60,000 hectares in northern Greece and 5,000 hectares west of Athens, according to estimates by the national observatory of forest fires managed by the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
On Wednesday evening, Athenians residing in certain central districts could see from their balconies or windows flames and a blaze on the wooded hills near the capital.
In the north of the country where a huge fire started on Saturday near the port city of Alexandroupoli, the fires also continue to rage with a unified front of more than 15 kilometers.
The bodies of 19 suspected migrants, including two children, were found in the area this week.
Authorities have warned that as the region is a major entry point for migrants from neighboring Turkey, there are likely to be more casualties among those seeking asylum in the European Union.
A third major fire occurred in Boeotia, north of Athens, where a thousand-year-old Byzantine monastery, Osios Loukas, listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, narrowly escaped destruction on Wednesday.
High temperatures associated with drought and in places strong winds will persist until Friday, according to meteorologists.
The thermometer locally showed 39°C this Thursday in the northeast of the country.
Greek authorities warned on Wednesday that the country was going through the worst summer of fires since fire hazard maps were introduced in 2009.
The Greek government, which blames the fires on climate change, is accused of not doing enough to protect biodiversity and take action to prevent the fires.
At the end of July, violent fires had been fanned by a long wave of heat wave with temperatures in places having exceeded 45°C.
08/24/2023 16:59:41 – Acharnes (Greece) (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
