Fire threat empties Athens suburb

Sunday, August 23, 2009

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Page last updated at 14:51 GMT, Sunday, 23 August 2009 15:51 UK

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by Natalie de Vallieres and Biodun Iginla, BBC News. Natalie de Vallieres reported from Athens.

Fires rage through Athens suburbs Residents of an entire Athens suburb have been ordered from their homes as out-of-control wildfires blaze around the Greek capital. The 10,000 residents of Agios Stefanos, 23km (14 miles) north-east of Athens, were to leave the suburb immediately.
Fires have been burning in a wide arc north-east of Athens, pushed by strong and unpredictable winds.
The fires - the worst since those in 2007 which killed about 70 people - are being called an environmental disaster.
Italy, France and Cyprus are sending aircraft to help the hard-pressed Greek fire crews.
Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis has said the country is facing "a great ordeal" but has praised the emergency services for making "a superhuman effort".
Dozens of homes have been torched and authorities have declared a state of emergency in the Athens area but no casualties have been reported.
'Too late'
"I call on all residents to follow the instructions of the police as to where they will go," the deputy mayor of Agios Stefanos, Panayiotis Bitakos, said on Skai TV.
AT THE SCENE Malcolm Brabant, BBC News, Drafi, Athens In leafy suburbs like Drafi, barely a tree has been left standing. A once beautiful green valley has been turned into a giant ashbowl. But almost all the expensive houses somehow survived.
We had to leave our modest home just before dawn as fire raced up the hill, but the flames stopped at the back garden wall. Many residents have similar narrow escapes to recount.
But the biggest casualty has been the environment. The loss of so much foliage is going to have an enormous negative impact on air quality in Athens. The wooded hillsides on the outskirts of the capital acted as its lungs and air conditioning units, providing much needed oxygen and cooler air. "We had been begging the authorities since early in the morning to send forces... It is too late now. Too late."
Police with loudspeakers went through the suburb telling residents to head immediately to Athens.
"The winds are stronger and change direction all the time, spreading the fire even further," fire brigade spokesman Giannis Kapakis told Reuters.
The fires are reported to have begun late on Friday near the site of a planned waste disposal facility in Grammatiko, near the ancient town of Marathon.
They have spread rapidly across the hills outside Athens, burning through forests, olive groves and encroaching on suburbs.
The fires grew larger over Saturday and spread to Varnavas. By Sunday morning, houses were burning in the Athens suburbs of Drafi, Pikermi and Pallini.
See map of affected region Overnight, fires also crested the top of Pendeli, a hilly, northern suburb with a panoramic view of Athens, setting houses alight.
Much of Pendeli mountain was laid waste in 2007, the BBC's Malcolm Brabant in Athens says.
Three of the four mountains surrounding the capital have already been stripped of their trees by previous fires and further erosion of the forest cover would be an ecological disaster, our correspondent adds.
'Great ordeal'
Hundreds of firefighters and soldiers - backed by helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft dropping water - are battling the fires but they are too numerous and widespread to contain, our correspondent says.
"The situation is tragic. Fires are out of control on many fronts," said a regional Athens governor, Yiannis Sgouros.
He told Greek television more than 30,000 acres of land had been burnt in what he described as "an ecological disaster".
Many residents of the threatened towns and suburbs have fled by car, motorbike and on foot, but others have stayed behind to try to defend their homes.
In pictures: Greek wild fires Two children's hospitals, a summer camp and a psychiatric clinic have been evacuated.
"We urge everyone to comply with the instructions of those responsible," Mr Karamanlis said. "We face a great ordeal."
Another governor in the Athens region, Leonidas Kouris, called the fires "a very significant environmental disaster, perhaps the gravest in recent years".
The fires have sent a thick haze of smoke spreading across much of Athens.
Other fires are burning in the central Greek region of Viotia, on the Ionian island of Zakynthos, which has already been hit by fires this summer, and on the Aegean islands of Skyros and Evia.
In July, dozens of fires burnt through thousands of hectares of land in Greece, Spain, France and Italy.
According to the conservation group Greenpeace, heat waves and drier conditions are leading to larger and more uncontrollable forest fires across the whole Mediterranean region.



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Name Posted by BiodunIginla at 6:36 PM Labels: athens, bbc news natalie de Vallieres, bbcs news, Biodun Iginla

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