Brit vacationers flee Greek wildfires

British tourists are among the thousands evacuated from the Greek wildfires raging as high as 80ft around the Parthenon temple in Athens.

More than 670 firefighters backed by volunteers, 17 waterbombing planes and 15 helicopters are battling the inferno after another massive wildfire broke out at 3pm  (midday GMT) on Sunday near Varnavas, 20 miles north of the Greek capital. 

Overnight the fire spread southward and is burning on several fronts including the village of Grammatiko, the ancient town of Marathon, the seaside municipality of Nea Makri, and Mount Penteli just north of Athens today. 

A children’s hospital and a military hospital were being evacuated early on Monday morning, the fire department said, while evacuation orders were issued for more than a dozen areas, including Marathon and several Athens suburbs. 

The fire sent a blanket of smoke over the centre of the Greek capital, darkening the sky, as the blaze, with flames as high as 82ft, spread ‘like lightning’ due to gale-force winds, a fire brigade spokesperson said.

Authorities in nearby towns were opening at least one sports hall and providing rooms in hotels for the thousands of evacuees fleeing from the 20-mile long wall of flames moving towards the capital.

Local media reported that two firefighters were slightly injured, while several civilians were treated in hospital for smoke inhalation. 

The wildfire began on Sunday afternoon about 22 miles from Athens and was fanned by strong winds that quickly drove it out of control, fuelled by tinder-dry conditions after repeated heatwaves this summer, coming on the heels of a particularly dry winter.

‘Despite a hard battle and the superhuman efforts overnight, the fire spread very fast and has reached Mount Penteli,’ a fire brigade official said.

Firefighting aircraft paused operations overnight and resumed efforts early on Monday. Police assisted with evacuations and some residents spent the night in shelters. At least three hospitals had been evacuated in Penteli.

Flames were also burning near the residential suburb of Dionysos about 14 miles northeast of the city centre of Athens late last night, and nearby areas.

Hundreds of wildfires have broken out across Greece since May. While summer fires are common in Greece, extraordinarily hot and dry weather linked to climate change have made the blazes more frequent and intense, according to scientists.

This year’s June and July were the hottest months ever recorded in Greece, which also recorded its warmest winter ever.

Both meteorologists and government officials have warned of the heightened danger of wildfires because of weather conditions from Sunday until Thursday.

Half of the country is under a ‘red alert’ for wildfire hazard, climate crisis and civil protection minister Vassilis Kikilias said, with weather experts warning of a ‘very difficult week’.

The fire department appealed to residents to follow evacuation orders issued by civil protection, with authorities noting that some people who had refused to leave their homes later became trapped and required rescuing, endangering the lives of firefighters.

‘Fire near you’ – ‘Forest fire near you. Follow the instructions of the authorities,’ said text messages sent to people in the Attica region, indicating in which direction to flee.

Marathon’s 7,000 residents were told to head for the coastal town of Neak Makri.

‘We are facing a biblical catastrophe,’ said Marathon’s mayor, Stergios Tsirkas. ‘Our whole town is engulfed in flames and going through difficult times,’ he told the Skai television channel.

‘During the night, the wind remained strong, creating dangerous situations,’ said Colonel Vassileios Vathrakogiannis, the fire department’s spokesman.

‘Unfortunately their intensity is expected to increase in the coming hours, and in any case citizens of the areas where the fire is developing must follow the directions of authorities.’

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis rushed back to Athens from a weekend break on the island of Crete to oversee the response to the blaze, a government official said, with memories still fresh of a 2018 fire that killed 104 people in the seaside town of Mati, near the capital. 

In the Mati fire, people were trapped in their homes and on roads as they tried to flee in their cars, with some downing as they were trying to swim away from the flames. 

Wildfires are frequent in Greece during its hot, dry summers, but authorities have said climate change is fuelling bigger and more frequent blazes.

Last year, wildfires in Greece killed more than 20 people, including 18 migrants who became trapped by the flames as they trekked through a forest in northeastern Greece and were caught by a massive fire that burned for more than two weeks.