Greek firefighters on Wednesday are battling fires for the fifth straight day and on multiple fronts that have already killed at least twenty people, mostly migrants, and blanketed Athens in thick black smoke.
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Among the dead are 19 suspected migrants, including two children, according to the police. Rumors on social networks blame migrants for starting fires, the origin of which is still unclear.
A fire engulfs the foothills of Mount Parnes (in Greek Parnitha), the second of the three hills surrounding Athens and home to the largest forest near the Greek capital, a national park.
“The situation in Parnitha is extremely critical,” Civil Protection Minister Vassilis Kikilias said at a press conference. “It’s unprecedented, and there’s no way to put it like that.”
Evacuation orders were issued on Wednesday morning for new neighborhoods in Menidi, in the Athens suburb, where three retirement homes are located.
The flames reached the first houses of Menidi, not far from a military field. They also destroyed homes and property in the nearby suburbs of Hasia and Fyli.
“Many people refuse to leave their homes,” Nikos Kountromichalis, a member of the Greek Red Cross, lamented on public television ERT.
“We found elderly people who had passed out in their garden,” added this official, who was in Menidi, adding that the Red Cross treated several people for burns and shortness of breath.
The detention center for migrants in Amygdaleza, 25 km north of Athens, had to be evacuated.
“Never Seen”
Greek firefighters have had to fight 350 fires over the past five days, including 200 that broke out in the past 48 hours, Civil Protection Minister Vassilis Kikilias told a news conference.
“I have never seen anything in such extreme conditions in my 32 years of service,” Greek fire chief Yiorgos Pournaras said, saying the Mount Parnes fire had spread despite bombers being on the scene within minutes from the water.
The Greek capital awoke on Wednesday to the smell of burning thick black smoke blanketing the sky.
“Unfortunately, the wind is not helping us at all,” Menidi Deputy Mayor Stathis Topalidis told public television ERT.
On Tuesday, civil protection ordered the evacuation of the district of Ano Liosia in north-west Athens, near Fyli, which has about 25,000 inhabitants. However, residents stayed home to protect their homes.
“Conditions remain difficult and in many cases extreme,” commented Yannis Artopios, spokesman for the Hellenic Fire Brigade.
Another fire was still raging at a landfill site in an industrial area of Aspropyrgos, west of Athens. A nearby neighborhood had to be evacuated on Wednesday morning.
In the northeast of the country, near the border with Turkey in the Evros River region, two fires near the port city of Alexandroupoli and in the forest of Dadia remained out of control, threatening the national park of the same name, home to rare birds of prey.
Rumors incriminating migrants
New evacuation orders were issued in this region during the night.
On Tuesday, 18 suspected migrants – including two children, according to police – were found dead near the Tuque border north of Alexandroupoli.
“The places where the fires broke out in the Dadia forest are transit points for migrants,” Valantis Gialamas, head of Evros prefectural border guards, told AFP. “I think we could find more bodies once the fire is out and autopsies can be done.”
A police officer who wished to remain anonymous added: “I’m sure there will be more deaths as the fire continues in places that are places of passage and hiding places.”
Rumors are circulating on social media that migrants are being accused. Three people were arrested in the north of the country on Tuesday after forcing illegal migrants into a truck trailer and accused them of setting fires. These three people had posted a video of their act on social networks in which they called for imitation.
The prosecutor of Greece’s Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered local prosecutors to investigate the causes of the fires and allegations of racism.
The flames are also still raging on the islands of Euboea and Kythnos in the Aegean Sea, in Boeotia north of Athens and in the west of the country. Another fire that broke out on the island of Samothrace in the Aegean Sea on Tuesday was contained overnight, but the island remains without power.
According to a report by the National Observatory in Athens, more than 40,000 hectares were destroyed by the fires in three days from August 19 to 21.