The huge forest fire that broke out yesterday in north-eastern Attica is still out of control and, also due to strong winds, has recently reduced to ashes a vast area of 100 thousand hectares, touching the north-western outskirts of Athens, where heavy smoke has been causing great apprehension for hours.
The air is now acrid even in the southern outskirts of the city, the opposite side to where the fires broke out.
702 firefighters, 199 vehicles, 17 planes and 18 helicopters have been at work on the ground for over 24 hours, but the fire has not yet been contained and is actually advancing along a front of over 30 kilometers, with flames over 25 meters high. To save the population, the authorities were forced to order mass evacuations in 11 cities and villages in the region: Dau Pentelis, Palia and Nea Pentelis, Marathon and Grammatiko, Dionysos and Patima Vrilissios are isolated, while the situation has slightly improved in Afidnes and Kaletzi. Two hospitals were also evacuated this morning and so far around seven thousand people have been displaced: some of them have found shelter in one of the stadiums in the capital, other sports facilities have been alerted. Two firefighter vehicles were engulfed by flames: one firefighter was seriously burned, another with less serious injuries and around thirty people were hospitalized for respiratory problems.
Concern is also growing hour by hour for electricity supplies: the flames have damaged at least 120 poles of the medium voltage power grid. In short, the situation is still dramatic, so much so that the European Union has immediately mobilized. Through the EU civil protection mechanism, two Canadairs from Italy, a helicopter from France and two ground firefighting teams from the Czech Republic and Romania will arrive in Greece in the next few hours.
“We stand with Greece in the fight against devastating fires. This is European solidarity in action,” wrote the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, on X announcing the aid. Obviously, there are also serious problems on the tourism front: the Minister of Navigation and Island Policies, Christos Stylianidis, has decided that all arrivals and departures scheduled for today of passenger ships to and from the port of Rafina will be diverted to the port of Lavrio. The situation is so serious that, for precautionary reasons, the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, with a circular just issued, has made it mandatory to immediately block manual work outdoors until tomorrow, calling on employers of companies operating in the region to respect their legal obligation to protect the health and safety of workers. While waiting for the vehicles from abroad, the real hope is that in the next few hours the weather will change and help the rescue operations. The director of the Greek National Meteorological Service, Theodoros Kolidas, confirmed on social media that the fire’s progress “is essentially driven by the north, north-east winds, the topography of the area and the great drought of the vegetation” and that “from 7 pm the intensity of the gusts will begin to decrease, a decrease that will be substantial around 9 pm”.