Greece asks EU for help as wildfires near Athens suburbs
Thousands of residents have been evacuated as large wildfires reached the suburbs of Athens, with some flames leaping as high as 25 metres (80 feet). The Greek government formally called on the EU for assistance on Monday, with France pledging to send 180 firefighters, 55 trucks and a helicopter to help contain the flames.
A massive wildfire blazed into Athens’ northeastern suburbs on Monday as hundreds of firefighters battled to contain it, forcing thousands of residents to flee their homes and sparking a Greek government appeal for international help.
In scenes never before seen in the Greek capital, residents wearing masks against the choking smoke were desperately dousing their homes with water hoses in the leafy suburbs of Nea Penteli and Vrilissia in an effort to render them less vulnerable to fire.
“(It’s) the first time ever the fire has come here,” said Melina Kritseli, 40, a civil servant living in a two-storey white house in Patima Halandriou, another Athens suburb that was evacuated.
“I took my children to a friend’s house to be safe,” she told AFP as her husband hosed the ground and grass outside their house.
Television footage showed several cars gutted by fire and the roofs of stately homes burning as water-bombing helicopters roared overhead.
“The situation is dramatic,” Penteli Mayor Natassa Kosmopoulou told news portal newsit.gr.
“A school and homes are on fire, and I can see the fire coming towards the town hall,” she said.
The National Observatory, Greece’s foremost institute monitoring natural hazards, narrowly escaped.
The wind had rekindled the fire in 40 different locations on Monday, he said.
Read more on FRANCE 24 English
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