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Thousands of residents of Athens were evacuated from their homes on Monday as strong winds pushed fires toward the northern outskirts of the Greek capital.
A wall of flames more than 25 metres high and with a radius of 30 kilometres is engulfing the city, Greek state broadcaster ERT reported.
“The atmosphere [is filled with] “If you smoke, you can’t breathe easily,” Christodoulos Kyrou-Tsakalos, who lives in the capital’s eastern neighbourhood of St Demetrios, told the Financial Times.
“The situation is not good. It’s not good,” he said, adding that firefighters and water-dropping planes were “doing their best” but that strong winds were thwarting their efforts.
“We just need the weather to be calmer, because with these strong winds it’s impossible to turn everything off.”
Hundreds of firefighters and dozens of planes have been battling the blaze since it broke out on Sunday, and Greece has appealed to the international community for help.
“The situation remains extremely difficult in the north-eastern areas
Attica, due to the fire that has been raging since yesterday,” the Athens Fire Department said on Monday. “Flashes and stains are continuous, constantly creating new fires and spreading rapidly, aided by very strong winds,” it said, adding that more than 700 firefighters were deployed to the area, with international assistance.
The European Commission said that Greek authorities had asked for help from the Union Civil Protection Mechanism, a centralised system for coordinating aid from other member states.
According to an EU official, two jets from Italy, a helicopter from France and two firefighting teams from the Czech Republic and Romania have been sent to the scene.
France also offered to send 180 rescue workers and firefighters to the region on Tuesday.
No deaths have been reported so far.
The National Observatory in Athens, the country’s oldest scientific institute, said its facilities were in “immediate danger” as forest fires had reached its grounds.
This is not the first time that forest fires have devastated Greece. In 2023, the EU recorded the largest forest fire in two decades in the northeastern village of Avantas, which killed 18 people and led to 13,000 evacuations from the region.
Last year alone, authorities recorded several hundred forest fires, fueled by persistent drought conditions that have recurred in previous summers.
June and July have been the hottest months in the country since records began in 1960, and some residents are exasperated by the discomfort that occurs every year.
“What we are witnessing today is the tip of the iceberg,” said Antonis Hadjikyriacou, a professor at Panteion University.
“In the last four or five years, extremely severe and extensive forest fires have occurred and some of the most important nature reserves in Greece have been completely and totally destroyed.”
Further information is provided by Alice Hancock in Brussels and Sarah White in Paris
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